


Carry Me Through

by 1010nabulation



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Bulges and Nooks, Canon-Typical Violence, Eggpreg, Gamzee Makara and Karkat Vantas Moirallegiance, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Minor Gamzee Makara/Karkat Vantas, Original Character Death(s), Oviposition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 03:50:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4690985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1010nabulation/pseuds/1010nabulation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which an unfortunate off-caste redblood discovers he has new horrifying mutations involving mating cycles and oviposition, and unintentionally draws his unwitting violetblooded (boy?)friend into his heat during what was supposed to be a relaxing movie night.  Said seadweller then does his best to help him through it, keeping him safe from all other hormone-addled pursuers through the use of deadly force.  Includes a budding matespritship, one healthy moiraillegiance, depictions of highblood rage and murderous intent, the deaths of no less than three unlucky intruders, too many references to troll Princess Bride, much emotional turmoil, some treasonous plotting, an overabundance of pity, egg-laying, and unconventional lusii.</p><p>  <i>You arrived at just the right moment</i><br/><i>A moment later I would have been out at sea</i><br/><i>With no way to be reached</i></p><p>  <i>I'll leave it up to you</i><br/><i>To carry me through</i><br/><i>That's about all I can do</i></p><p>  <i>--lyrics from Carry Me Through, by Greg Laswell</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Karkat, crawl out of your own skin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lizardlicks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizardlicks/gifts).



> This is for Lizardlicks, who creates so much wonderful Erikar content that I wanted to make a little something in return, and whose prompt was so inspiring this fic ended up way longer than I ever intended or knew I could produce on my own! Much love and appreciation. :)

==> Karkat, crawl out of your own skin

You already did that. More specifically, you crawled out of your pupa after your first adult molt about two and half weeks ago. You have brand-fucking-new, noticeably darker skin covering a now even bulkier frame. It's like your bones decided you didn't need to be much taller than a subadult though, so your adult musculature and the rest of your padding didn't have anywhere to spread out and just piled onto your shoulders, your thighs, your belly, and god-fucking-help-you your ass (bigger? is it bigger? fucking hell, it is). It felt strange at first—still you, but different somehow, _more_ \--and you thought you were getting used to it. Adult-you is still kind of small, but a fucking powerhouse, and you _like_ that. You've been spending a lot of time swinging your sickles around, finding your new center of gravity and kind of flailing a lot, but absolutely reveling in how you can now slice through your practice dummies like goddamn butter when you manage to hit them right.

But right now? Right now your skin feels too tight and itches like fuck, like you didn't _just_ fucking pupate, and all your muscles are tense, and you're too hot. You're so hot, you've taken ablutions twice tonight and opened all the windows in your hive and are walking around in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and a tight tank top and you're _still_ fucking hot. Are you sick? Maybe you're sick.

That would be fine—awful, but fine—if this were any other night and you could just lie down on the cold tiles in your ablution block until you stop being on fire, but tonight you have plans. Eridan's coming over; it's movie night. And yeah, you guess you could cancel, but you've missed the past five movie nights because you were a little busy cocooning, and before that _he_ had to skip a whole bunch because he was in the same situation, and, well... you miss movie nights and, fuck it all, you miss _him_.

You heave a sigh as you sprawl out on your couch. You're probably contagious. At least you should warn him that being around you might be a little riskier than usual. Yeah, that would be the non-asshole thing to do.

You reach and fumble around on the coffee table in front of the couch for your palmhusk, so you can text Eridan without having to get up. It takes a few tries, palmhusk skittering out of your reach every time you hit it, but you finally manage to get a hold of it. Even that small bit of effort is making you breathe harder. Shit.

You troll him from your palmhusk.

CG: HEY ERIDAN. IT'D BE PRETTY SHITTY OF ME NOT TO SAY ANYTHING BEFORE YOU GET HERE, SO. I THINK I'M SICK. YOU CAN COME OVER OR NOT, BUT I WOULDN'T BLAME YOU IF YOU AVOIDED ME LIKE THE FUCKING PLAGUE. WHICH I MIGHT ACTUALLY HAVE.

Not five seconds later, your palmhusk buzzes with a reply.

CA: i fuckin doubt you got the plague kar an i been lookin forwward to seein you an wwatchin 'in wwhich a beautiful an pure-hearted teal lady is kidnapped as an excuse for wwar on the evve a her matespritship handfasting to a spoiled and duplicitous vviolet prince wwhom she ain't flushed for' an blah blah blah troll princess bride wwith you

You huff out a breathy laugh. Both of you have seen that one a million times already, but it never gets old. Watching something familiar and comforting with him sounds so good right now, too. Makes you feel a little better already.

You're in the middle of typing out a reply when your palmhusk buzzes with another message.

CA: in any case i'm already outside a your hivve so i'm comin in

“Shit,” you spit out, setting your palmhusk down with a clatter as you hear the front door swing open behind you. What the fuck? Eridan doesn't have a key to your place. Nobody does. You grumble a bit, sitting up enough to peer over the back of the couch. 

Oh, Crabdad's on his way out, chittering in surprise as he nearly runs into Eridan. He doesn't like Eridan much (or any visitors really), but he knows Eridan is a friend and you'd be mad if he tried to run him off so he only screeches at him a little bit as he skitters past.

“Where's he goin in such a hurry?” Eridan asks as he steps inside and shuts the door on your agitated lusus.

“I don't know. Probably to go roll around in literal shit and bring home some nasty rotten carrion with extra fucking maggots, since I _just_ cleaned the entire hive and got rid of his stash when I cleared my cocoon debris away.” You love your lusus, you do, but you hope he stays out for a while so your hive can remain fucking clean for a whole perigee for once in your miserable life.

“So fuckin gross.” There's a look of true disgust on Eridan's face and he scans the room like he's going to see a spot you missed or something. (He won't find any; you were very meticulous. And anyway, Crabdad keeps his shit in his own space, not in your living areas.)

“Everything's clean, so you can relax.” You roll your eyes and turn back around so you can flop back down onto the couch. “Except me, I guess... I'm full of goddamn germs, but otherwise everything is fucking spotless.”

“Yeah, all right,” Eridan says. You hear his shoes thunk down onto the floor by the door. A moment later he's standing in front of you where you're sprawled on the couch in all your sweaty, worn-out inglory. He looks surprised, but there's a smile on his face as he looks down at you. “Wow, Kar. You look fuckin good.” 

What. You raise a skeptical eyebrow. He might want to check his glasses, because you're pretty sure you look like trash right now.

His cheeks tinge violet and his fins flutter. “I mean, just... freshly pupated an all, y'know? You're, uh, lookin really solid.”

Oh. Well, you guess it _is_ the first time he's seeing you since your molt. You kind of gaped at him the first time he came over after his, shortly before you cocooned, so... yeah. All right. You're no fuck-off tall adult seadweller, but you guess you do look a little different now.

Your cheeks are hot. Hotter even than the rest of you. “Sure, yeah. A solid piece of shit.”

Eridan shakes his head, a lopsided smile on his face. “You don't look like shit, so quit sayin' so, and honestly you don't look all that sick to me either, Kar. Maybe a lil fevered, but not like dyin a plague.”

You sigh and rub your hands over your face. “I feel like I'm burning a hole through this couch, and like I want to climb out of my skin, but no, I'm fucking _fine_.” You hope the glare you're fixing him with pierces his thick pan. You are not kidding around; you feel completely off, and way more irritable than usual, and you want to apologize and tear his fucking face off in equal measure. 

He nods, hands up in a placating gesture. “All right. Can I check an see how bad the fever is then? I can get you some pills for it if it's that awful. I doubt you've done a whole lot to take care a yourself yet, right? Probably haven't even told your palemate you're not feelin good.”

Fuck him, he's right, and he knows it, the smug asshole. You didn't want to bother Gamzee with a simple fever; you can take care of yourself better than he can anyway. But then again all you've done is try to douse the heat with ablutions and lie around in your underwear a lot. Yeah, great job, Karkat. You heave a loud sigh and wave a hand at your forehead, letting him have at it. He already knows how warm you usually run. You feel like you're so far above that he should be able to tell without you having to go dig out your temperature stick.

When Eridan leans in and puts a blessedly cool palm to your forehead, you aren't prepared for how _good_ it feels. Your eyes fall shut and you shiver it's so good. The relieved sigh you let out is half groan. Fuck. You clamp your mouth shut so no more embarrassingly indecent sounds can escape.

“Whoa,” Eridan breathes.

“See? I'm so hot,” you murmur, pressing your head further into his hand.

“Yeah. Yeah, you are, Kar.” He swallows loud enough you hear his throat click. Slowly, he draws his hand away. “So. I'll, uh, I'll go get you somethin for that then, yeah?”

That's the logical next step, sure, but now you don't want him to leave. You want his nice cool hand to stay on you, maybe touch you other places. Like your neck. Or your back. Platonically! You think? But that's, shit, that's asking way too much, platonic or not; you know for a fact he's been harboring flushed feelings for you, he confessed as much the last time you hung out, so asking him to touch you more would be pretty fucking mean of you. You know he'll probably read more into it. And you... you're not sure, you don't... you don't know if you feel that way about him too. You don't think? But maybe you _do_ and that scares the shit out of you. You never exactly gave him a straight answer about how you feel. Even if you hypothetically did have flushed feelings for him, you're a fucking mutant; you might as well cull him as soon as fill a pail with him for all the good it'd do. He knows. Claims he doesn't care; he's _royalty_. Like that'll save him _or_ you. Fucking suicidal moron.

Okay, not thinking about that mess right now. You're _friends_ and this is a friendly visit.

Eridan's hand isn't on you anymore; he's gone off to rummage in the cabinet in your ablution block for fever reducers like a good fucking friend whose mind _isn't_ wandering into uncomfortable territory with absolutely no provocation. You can still feel the cool tingle where he touched your face. It's making warmth bloom in your groin of all places. Shit, _shit_ , you are such a piece of shit. You sit up straighter and draw your legs up in front of you, and then dig your claws into your shins. Not enough to draw blood, just enough for the prickle-pain to distract you. _Get a fucking grip, Karkat._

A few minutes later, Eridan returns with a damp washcloth, a couple of pills, and a glass of water. He gives you a hesitant smile and hands you all of it without a word.

“Thanks.” You think that came out pretty level and congratulate yourself for it silently.

“Welcome,” he says. He stands there awkwardly for a second, watching you swallow the pills and down half the glass of water. Then he rubs his hands against his pants and turns abruptly to your entertainment center. “I'll get the moviegrub in.”

You watch Eridan bend over and start messing with your electronics. He knows his way around them; he's been been in charge of movie preparations enough times that you'd seriously worry about his mental capacity if he didn't know how to navigate your setup by now. Actually, you're starting to worry about your own pan, because you're staring at his ass like the show's already started and the show is _that ass_. Those bulgecrushingly tight pants of his hide _nothing_ \--his ass is surprisingly round considering how slender Eridan still is even after his molt, and it looks firm and thick and you want to _squeeze_. Yeah, your bulge is definitely starting to swell in its sheath and you hate yourself a lot for it. You scrub the washcloth over your face and squeeze your thighs together, berating yourself under your breath. It's not helping. God, you are making this whole evening so fucking awful and awkward. You're so preoccupied with telling your own rapidly fattening bulge off you don't notice when Eridan finishes and settles himself onto the couch next to you.

“Kar? Are you doin all right?”

Ah, fuck, he's looking at you like he's worried you're fucking pan-cracked. Which, let's face it, you probably are! Apparently one of the symptoms of this illness is an uncontrollable lust for your best friend! Who knew! Maybe the cure is to grope him until it goes away, but like hell you're going to do that oh my god what the fuck is wrong with you?

“I'm fine,” you grit out, clenching all your pelvic muscles to keep your bulge in and your nook from dripping. It's a fucking effort and probably a lost cause, but you're dead set on not embarrassing yourself further just yet.

Eridan gives you a dubious look. “Say the word an I can look up on WebMC, you know, that mediculler site, what to do for somethin like this.”

“And diagnose me with some deadly nookrotting disease that says I have three days to live when in reality I just have something like a touch of summer fever that'll clear up on its own in a week? No fucking thank you, I think I'll pass.”

He laughs, flashing you brilliantly white serrated teeth. A smile that lethal should not be cute or sexy, but it's both. “All right, Kar, I'll leave it be. I was just thinkin that sometimes it can be helpful.”

“Yeah, well, I said I'm _fine_ , so can we just watch the fucking movie already?”

Eridan decides to humor you and presses play on the grubcontroller, and glory fucking hallelujah you can now focus on something that is not how the indulgent way he looks at you is making your insides turn to hot jelly. You're not fine. You are _so_ mortifyingly not fine, but like hell you're going to tell him what's wrong is in addition to running a fever and feeling like your skin is too tight on you, your nook is now on fire and your bulge is throbbing in your sheath and you kind of think you want him to fuck you better. Ha! Hahaha! No.

This whole situation would be so hilarious if it was happening to someone else. Your life is like a bad porno right now, with you in the role of the sex-crazed heat-afflicted lowblood clamoring for the sexual attentions of any other troll that walks into the room.

Wait. No. Heat isn't a thing for trolls, is it? You would have learned about it in schoolfeeding if it was real. Hell, no one would have to fuck at drone-point if trolls went into heat, would they? There'd be plenty of slurry to go around, more than any drone could ever hope to collect. Heat is just a stupid kink thing, just an excuse to get the main star to take as many bulges as trollishly possible in as short a timeframe as possible. It's not _real_.

But what if it's a mutant thing? Like how your blood is stupid off-spectrum red, and how you pupated ridiculously late, and how you're stunted for an adult, and... is this just another betrayal by your body? Fuck. Fuck this.

You have to know. You reach for your palmhusk and pull up your web browser so you can angrily punch in a search. Eridan glances at you and you snap at him to just keep watching the movie. You'll just be a second.

The first three pages of search results are all porn. Porn. Porn. Fucking porn. Then finally there's an actual scholarly article about the history of your species that supposedly mentions heat. It's fucking long and like hell you're going to read the whole thing right now, so you tell your palmhusk to pick up keywords. And there it is. Heat. It's a real thing. Not anymore, apparently, since your symbiosis with the mothergrub, but the joke is on you and your mutated abomination of a body—it's real! And you think it's happening to you.

You squeeze your eyes shut and put your palmhusk down. Okay. You'll just. Watch the movie. Maybe it'll pass. You'll just ignore it and watch. The damn. Movie.

You try to. Usually you'd be totally enraptured by farmboy Westley subtly expressing his flushed feelings for clueless Buttercup, but it's kind of hard to concentrate when Eridan's so close you can smell him. Ugh, you wish this wasn't happening to you. But the universe clearly hates you, so of course you're one of the lucky hideously mutated trolls that experience actual heat. And a very fine specimen of adult troll is sitting right next to you, so of course he's going to suddenly be massively appealing. You have to admit to yourself in the privacy of your own pan that Eridan is appealing regardless, but right now he's just unfairly attractive. For instance, usually you don't have a particularly strong like or dislike of the stupidly expensive and pretentious cologne Eridan likes to wear--some exotic woody scent and sea salt freshness--but tonight it smells so mouthwateringly good you want to lick his neck and see if he tastes as nice as he smells. You curl further into your corner of the couch and try to breathe as shallowly as possible. Of course, that only makes you feel more lightheaded, but what else are you supposed to do? You'd tell Eridan to leave you to your misery, but there's no way he'd be able to make it back to his own hive before sun-up at this point.

You lose track of time and the next thing you know, Vizzini is getting tricked into drinking his own poison already. Fuck. Also, despite your efforts to control yourself, your bulge is half out of its sheath and you can feel a wet spot of warmth where your nook is leaking into your pants, and somehow you've got a hand pressed against your crotch. All of this without even realizing it! At least your legs are still drawn up to your chest so it shouldn't be _too_ obvious to Eridan what a completely disgusting host you're being. Sick or in heat or whatever is wrong with you, there is no fucking excuse for inappropriately fondling yourself right in front of him.

A hazy glance over at Eridan shows he's not exactly paying attention to the movie either. You're sure he was looking at you when you glanced over, and is now staring too intently at the screen as though he didn't just see you shaming yourself. There's color in his cheeks and his fins are fanned out, and he's clutching one of your decorative pillows in his lap. He shifts a little and you can tell--he's definitely trying to hide some action in his pants too. Usually he likes to spread himself out on the couch, get cozy with you, not curl into a corner with a little pillow stuffed against his crotch. _Fuck_. Does your heat affect him? Is that a thing too? That's it, you are the worst friend in the history of trollkind. It's you.

“Eridan?” Your voice comes out rough. You clear your throat, try not to look too pointedly at his crotch.

His eyes flick back to you, then away again. He swallows. “Yeah?”

“I'm sorry. I fucked up. I sh—I shouldn't have let you come over.”

Eridan's brow furrows, and his fins droop as his whole face goes purple. He hugs the pillow tighter and his eyes slide away from your face in shame. “No, Kar, it ain't your fault. You tried to warn me. I just missed you so bad, an I thought it'd be fine and I could control my feelins, but I guess... I guess seein you all hot an adultified was too much for me. I'm sorry I couldn't keep a tighter reign on myself, an I promise... I promise I'll buy you a new pillow since I'm sullyin this one.”

“Oh my god, I'm not talking about your fucking wiggly!” You scowl, your cheeks on fire. “That's my fault too, anyway. This isn't about _you_. I'm... _augh, fuck it_.”

You pull up the article on your palmhusk again and shove it in his face. “Here. Look, I'm going into heat, okay. That's a thing, apparently, for some lucky trolls, according to at least one source! That's what this is! I'm a fucking mutant throwback _freak_. More than I already was! So any 'feelins' you have—they're just chemical, and they're my fault, and I am so fucking sorry, okay? Past me is a fucking pan-leaky shit-for-brains for not realizing this was happening sooner. It's my fault...”

You're panting for breath by the time you're done with your diatribe, and you can't bear to look at Eridan. He's not saying anything, reading about your fucked up new condition presumably, so you bury your face in your arms and focus on trying not to pass out or let your bulge slip any further from your sheath. It's pulsing with the beat of your pusher, a fast throb throb throb, and you want. You want to touch it. So bad. It's so fucked up. You are such a fucking freak.

Eridan says nothing for so long you start thinking this is it—this is the last straw for him, the thing that breaks his castist seadweller sensibilities. Oops, now you're a little too fucking mutated for him to stand for! Oh god. Ohhh god, if he flips out on you now you're not going to be able to defend yourself. You're too out of it. You're dizzy and your muscles feel like jelly and you're feverish. Even yesterday when you were fine you were only hitting your mark thirty percent of the time, and Eridan's a lot slimmer than you are but he's bigger, he's seadweller big, and you don't want to hurt him anyway, you want to _pail_ him, maybe you should just let him cull you and get it over with--

His voice cuts into your frantic thoughts.

“Okay. Are you gonna call Gam? Do you want me to do it for you, Kar? I mean, I'll help, but I'm—I'm about as ruddy for you as a troll can get, not pale at all, an I learned my lesson about fuckin with quadrants the hard way, so. Gam should be here. I think. 'Cause this is more than I know to deal with.” He's whispering, so softly, like he's scared and he _cares_ , and it clashes so much with what your panic-addled pan was telling you he'd do that you look up at him in shock.

Eridan kind of looks like he wants to run away, actually. He's got an antlerbeast-in-the-headlights look on his face, though he's also got this stupidly earnest concern thing going on too, eyes all wide and bright and fins twitching. “Just... just tell me what you want me to do, Kar, an I'll do it. I have no fuckin clue how to handle this.”

You have to laugh. It's that or cry. Or both. That seems to be what your tear ducts and squawkblister have decided. In between loud barks of laughter-sobs, you manage to gasp out, “No. Fuck no, don't call Gamzee! Do you even know what heat _is_? I'm pretty sure there's fucking pheromones and shit, and I don't want to find out if they make you want to pail everyone in sight while my moirail's around! I don't—I don't ever want to even think about pailing him. Not even if it's because of a fucked up mating imperative! Maybe especially then!”

Eridan winces. “Okay, give me an idea of somethin _not_ awful I should do then. Not like this kind a thing was covered in the Pailin 101 schoolfeedin. I mean. I can't just... I'm not gonna do anythin you don't want. But what the fuck can I even do to make this better?” 

He's floundering, waving the hand not occupied by the pillow around like it'll help him grasp something solid in all the confusion. You get it though. Just because you're in heat and he's red for you and the concupiscent urges are only amplified, it doesn't mean he's going to take advantage of you. He's... wow. He's taking this way better than you imagined. Freaking out, yeah, but not in a fucking scary way. You are definitely more vulnerable than you've ever been in front of him and he's... he's being _really good_ about your boundaries. It twists your pusher. Without meaning to, you let out a raspy, tear-choked trill. Of course you do; his concern and care for you are broadcasting _good mate_ at your hormone-scrambled pan. Fuck this heat.

That trill of yours pulls an answering chirr of longing from Eridan before he claps his hand over his mouth. “Fuck, sorry, I didn't mean to,” he says, voice muffled behind his palm. “Fuckin involuntary, I fuckin swear.”

“Say fuck one more time, bulgelicker,” you say, aiming a light kick at his thigh so he knows you're teasing. That's the word of the night all right. Fuck.

He yelps and you snicker wetly. You scrub your face with your hands, smearing the tears away, and take a few deep breaths. Okay, you're not in imminent danger of dying. And things could be a lot worse than they are... you don't have to go through this alone. Eridan said he'd help, and he's really trying to fight the pheromones you're sure you're spilling everywhere by now, for _your_ sake, and you're so fucking grateful, and also you want to pail him _so bad_.

And... well. Coming up with reasons not to is really hard right now.

“It's fine. You're fine,” you tell him. Also yourself. You're fine, you're both fine, everything is going to be fine. You just need to make the heat go away...

“What if...” you say, twisting the bottom hems of your boxers between your claws, knees drawn up to your chin again. “What if pailing makes it better? What if all I have to do is, is fuck someone, and it stops?”

Eridan is staring at you wide-eyed, fins flared. His lips move like he wants to say something, but is afraid to. Looks like you'll have to spell it out for him.

You let out an exasperated sigh and roll your eyes up to the ceiling. You can't look at him right now. “I'm asking you, nookwipe, if you'll pail me. To help. That's it, that's what you can do, as a friend, to help me right now. Okay?”

“Oh,” he says, very small. “ _Yes_.”

You bite your lip and let your eyes slide back to his face. He gives you an uncertain smile, and you try to return it. “Good. Okay. Platform's in my block closet. Pail too.”

You leave troll Princess Bride playing to an empty room.


	2. Eridan, help your friend

==> Eridan, help your friend

Yeah, you are. You're helping Kar, who just happens to be your very best friend and undeniable flushcrush, with this weird heat thing he's got going on.

You have no idea what you're doing; it's not like you've ever pailed anyone other than yourself, but neither has Karkat, so you guess that's okay? And it's just to help him get over his heat; it's not like this matters, not like... not like you want it to. So. So what?

So you want to make this good for him, even if he only wants to pail you 'cause he's gotta.

He's having a hard time with setting up the fold-out pailing platform, so you help him, taking direction about where he wants it and making sure it's all laid out proper. By the time everything's ready he's making all these gorgeous gasping rough chirps, and your bulge is responding to every one of them with a painful pulse. It's still mostly sheathed, trapped in you by your too-tight pants. Hurts. Hurts but good.

The moment you've got the platform ready, Karkat wobbles over to it. He tells you to strip as he tugs his own clothes off, and you tear your eyes away from him long enough to get out of your layers.

You hiss as you get your pants off and your bulge can finally uncoil, which it does in one long pull.

“Holy fuck,” Karkat breathes. He's up on the platform now, his own cute, fat bulge unsheathed and twisting on itself (and holy shit... holy shit, are those _gills_ above his grub scars?), and he's watching you with glassy eyes. “You're fucking huge.”

You tear your eyes off of him and look down at yourself. “Well, yeah, you could say I'm endowed enough.” 

Got to admit your bulge kept up with your adult molt. It ain't enormous by seadweller standards, but it's longer and thicker than most landdweller bulges if the internet is any standard to go by. You might have compared. (You totally did—anybody who says they haven't is telling tales). 

You can feel your fins getting hotter. “Is that goin to be a problem?”

Karkat growls and spreads his legs further so you can see his cherry red nook. “No, and fuck you for implying it might be. Now hurry up and stuff it in me; I can't wait all night.”

Okay, that's a command you're happy to comply with. You've been wanting him for so long—long before tonight with all the pheromones in the mix making you both shake with it. You climb up and over him, slowly, hesitantly. He's so small. Sturdy, sure, but compact and _small_. You're afraid of going too fast, afraid of hurting him... and honestly, if you had your preferences you'd rather be the one climbing onto _his_ bulge, not sticking yours in him. That ain't what this is about, though; it's all about what he needs, and he already said he needs you in him.

You wonder... you wonder if you can kiss him? If that'd be against the rules since you're just doing this as a friendly gesture? Would it be too flush? You want to, you _really_ do, and it's hard resisting, but. Probably you shouldn't. Probably he doesn't want that. You lick your lips, indecisively hovering over him on your knees.

He doesn't wait for you to decide if it's all right. While you're still hesitating, Karkat closes the gap between you with a grumble and pulls you into a rough kiss, with lots of teeth and tongue. You moan into his mouth, overwhelmed by this simple contact, his blunt teeth tugging at your lower lip. You—you're kissing your flushcrush. _He's_ kissing _you_.

Still kissing you hard, Karkat takes you by the shoulders and shoves, rolling you beneath him, and _oh_. That's perfect. Yes, this is what you want, you want him taking what he needs so you don't have to worry or wonder if you're self-indulgently taking too much. Because you could. You would. Your love is all-consuming and it's smothering and you want him so much, you want all of him, you want him to wreck you. You kiss him fervently, tongue pushing against his, sliding like bulges might.

Fuck, like bulges _are_. You let out an embarrassingly loud trill as Karkat grinds his hips down into yours, mashing his nook against yours and letting your bulges twine. He chirrs back at you, fingers dug into your hair perilously close to your hornbeds, and you feel like you could die right now and not care. You don't, though, obviously. You let your bulge engulf his and you run your hands down his sides, reverently tracing each gill slit. They're small, probably not very useful, but they're _there_ , and you love him for it. His muscles twitch under your hands and the opercula lift and...wow. Yeah, you're ghosting your claws against delicate filaments. Holy fuckin shit.

Karkat shivers, breaking the kiss to bury his face in your shoulder and gasp for breath as you play with his gills. Yeah, yours are sensitive too. Reluctantly, you move your hands and smooth them over his back instead, giving him a chance to recover.

“Who,” Kar wheezes right into your ear, “who said you could fucking stop?”

Oh. Oh, he liked that! You are so fuckin delighted, your fins flutter and the left one flickers against his face, little pinprick fireworks going off down your nerves into your spine at the contact. You run your hands over his gills again and he shudders, mouthing at your neck.

You make sure to keep on fondling his gills even as he shifts and reaches a hand between you both to grab your bulge and angle it toward his nook. You bite your lip until you taste blood, keeping your touch light. Oh god. Your bulge is slipping in him and he's so tight, so _hot_. It's all you can do not to buck up into him. He's hissing, though, as he works himself onto your bulge. It's big for him, and you don't want to hurt him. And yet he's chirring as you slide further in, chirring and gasping soft curses at you, which you know are more like benedictions from him.

“Ah, yes, fuck, fuck you, fuuuck, Eridan, ah, more, MORE, fucking _fuck_...” It's a steady stream of invectives, and you cherish every one.

You're whispering (whimpering) his name, over and over, as he fully seats himself on your bulge. That's it. The whole ridiculous length of you is twisting inside of his nook, and you feel like your bulge is going to melt inside him, and you want to cry it's so good. 

When he starts moving, you might actually _be_ crying from the sheer overwhelming feel of it all. Your whole body feels like it's on fire and you love him, you love him so much it hurts. He's clutching at your shoulders now, his claws digging in as he thrusts his hips and makes your bulge lash inside him, sparks of pain making the pleasure that much sharper. Your hands are shaking as you hold him to you, arms and legs wrapped around his back like you never want to let him go.

It doesn't take much to bring you to climax. It happens so fast you don't even think of a pail before you're spilling into Karkat with a wordless howl. Your slurry fills him, pumping cool into him as your hips spasm. He rides you a few seconds longer, his nook clenching on your bulge through your aftershocks.

He doesn't spill much when he comes. You're too high on endorphins to question it, and he doesn't seem to care, so you just hold him afterwards and drift, content to rest bonelessly with his warm weight still on top of you.

Once your bulge retracts and still nothing comes out of him, not much more than a few drops, then you start to get vaguely worried.

“Kar?”

He burrows against your neck, chittering contentedly at you. Oh fuck, that sends your head spinning and your pusher expanding warmly. Good. He feels good and you feel good.

But...

“You didn't need a pail, is that... is that normal?” Maybe it is for him; you have no fuckin clue. He's a mutant warmblood, who even knows? “Is the heat better now?”

“Mmm,” he murmurs, like finding words is hard. “Shh. Shut up. Feels good. Right.”

You nod. All right. As long as he feels better... You trace your claw tips over his back in swirling circles, soothing you both. “'Kay.”

 

Not twenty minutes later, Karkat is shifting again, rubbing against you like you didn't just pail the daylights out of him. Apparently once wasn't enough to quench the fire. Under normal circumstances you wouldn't be ready to go again so soon, but with him grinding right on your sheath so insistently and nipping at your neck and fins you can't help but respond.

He murmurs a rough, “Please? More,” and it breaks your pusher. You give in and pail him again.

And again.

And again.

And you lose track of how many times you pail after that, or what time it is, or how long you've been at it, but it feels so good and Karkat wants it, and you'd do anything for him, so you give him whatever you've got as many times as he asks.

It should be alarming, how Karkat is filling up with what slurry you manage to produce each time, his belly starting to bulge slightly with the genetic fluid trapped inside him. After the first few pailings you tried to convince him to let you relieve him of it, help him release in a pail, but he snapped at you and wouldn't let you hook your fingers in his nook right, or even get the pail under him properly, and, well. You guess if it makes him feel better you shouldn't force it. You can help get it all out of him once he's feeling like letting go.

You'll have to pay close attention to the sounds he makes to know when it's time for that. Kar went completely non-verbal a while back, just nuzzling at you and mindlessly climbing on you every time he's ready for your bulge again, and falling asleep contentedly beside you when he's sated. He trills and chirrs so pretty for you, and you chirp right back, your hindpan elated that he wants you. Hell, your _whole_ pan, even.

You'd do anything for him. Everything. 

You're hardly in your right mind yourself, but at least you have enough presence of mind to stumble to the nutrition block to bring back drinks and snacks. You coax some water and grubgrain bars into him the next time he wakes, after you've pailed again, and he seems happy with it. Happy with you.

Right now he's sleeping all curled warmly against you, and you've got an arm around him protectively. You're staring at him through half-lidded eyes, just watching the gentle rise and fall of his thoracic cage as he breathes. He is precious to you. He tries to be so hard and rough, but like this his softness is right at the surface. You brush a tousled lock of hair out of his face, and his little rounded nose wrinkles, and you smile. He is beautiful. And right now, he's all yours. You drift with him.

 

Later, you don't know how much later, you're woken by a clattering crash in the front part of the hive. At first you think it's nothing, just Crabdad coming home. That snuffling and shuffling right outside Karkat's respiteblock door must be his lusus making sure he's all right.

It's actually Karkat that alerts you to something being off. He's lifting his head groggily, sniffing the air, and there's a rattling rumbling-hiss in his thorax that goes right through to your bones and sets every nerve alight. Not his lusus, then.

You chirr softly to him and press a kiss to his forehead, then warily approach the door. Somewhere along the line your glasses came off, but it's too late to try looking for them now. Thankfully, you can see well enough at close range for it not to matter too much.

You aren't prepared for it when you open the door and find another troll there, crouched just outside. A gigantic troll with huge water-buffalo-lookin horns looks at you with lust-hazed eyes and trills at you. Instantly, your lips pull back to show all your rows of pointed teeth and your fins spread wide in a fuckin clear threat display. He trills again like maybe you didn't get that he really wants to fuck and not fight, but you are having none of it. The only one you want to be fuckin is Kar, and you'll rip this giant limb from limb before you let him get all up on Karkat.

You pull back your fist and punch him in the sternum, since you can't reach his face. Fuck, he's tall. Taller than you, and that's saying something!

All it does is make him mad and fuckin break your hand. Doesn't even knock the air out of him like you'd wanted it to. You snarl and clutch your throbbing hand, and he comes barreling at you, and it's all you can do to stay on your feet and not get bowled over. You grunt at the impact and almost go down. But you're seadweller strong and you stay on your feet, striking out with the claws of your good hand to push him off you as he starts shoving his way inside. 

You can't let him get to Kar. 

Huge-ass growls and cranes his neck around you, hardly mindful of the claws you've got sunk into the flesh of his arms, and gives another loud mating trill, cooing a soft one right afterwards, staring right at Karkat. Guess that means he's finally realized you ain't the one he wants. No. No, fuck no, he's not getting your—your Karkat! Nobody else gets to touch him, no one else was given permission, he doesn't _want_ anyone but you right now, and you are _not_ allowing this shitblood to get a single step closer! 

Righteous fury bubbles up in you and you screech, then lever yourself up on him with your claws so you can dig your fangs right into his meaty neck. You'll rip his fuckin throat out. Let him try and ignore an angry seatroll going for his fuckin jugular. He tastes nasty, like reeky sweat and hot coppery blood, but you don't let go.

He bellows and bodily rips you from him, slamming you into the hallway wall. You wipe your mouth—your hand comes back slicked with violet and a fair amount of rust—and spit out a few teeth.

Okay, you're shit at hand-to-hand combat, but you've got sinewy seadweller strength and you can take a fuckin beating like a pro. You shake it off. He's in there with Karkat, and you can hear Kar's rattlesnake hiss, and it gives you strength. He wants _you_ , not this giant lout.

You stand up and shake the dizziness out of your pan, then grit your teeth and take a running leap at the huge asshole's back. You know how to take down someone so enormous when you're smaller than him; troll Princess Bride taught you that. You'll choke him out. Only you're not going to stop once he's simply unconscious. Hell fuckin no, no mercy for unwanted intruders going for your fuckin mate.

Once you get your arms hooked around his neck, it takes a lot longer to bring him down than it did on screen, but then again you aren't trying to make small talk like Westley did. You get bashed into every surface in Karkat's room as he tries to get you off, smashing into his bookcase and slamming into the recuperacoon, sloshing sopor everywhere. The table breaks under you as the rustblood tries to suplex himself down on top of you. Bright pain blooms in your thorax and you cry out. He gets to his feet again, slowly, and slams you into the wall. Your vision swims, and you can't breathe. You're not sure if he's going to crush you before you manage to choke him out.

It's hard, it's so hard, but still you cling on. You're dazed and your grip keeps slipping in the blood from the teeth-gashes in his neck. He tries to pry your arms away and it almost works, but you're fuckin _strong_ , and you don't let go even when his claws rake your forearms. Finally he wobbles, goes to his knees. Then he drops backwards on top of you. It hurts. Everything hurts. Your pump biscuit is going a thousand leagues a minute and you're gasping for breath, but you cling and squeeze his neck. You lie there on the floor beneath his weight, still squeezing the life out of him, until you feel him shudder and go still. And then you wait five hundred agonizing counts more just to be sure.

Once you know he's dead, you let go and shove at him weakly, somehow managing to crawl out from under him. When you're free you take a shuddering breath. You're alive. You just fought a troll naked, without your strife specibus, without your glasses even, and fucking killed him. Fuck yeah, you are the best and most powerful mate, it's _you_. Karkat is safe. You did that. _Eridan fuckin Ampora_.

You're bleeding from your nose, your arms, and a couple places on your back... your thorax burns with sharp bright pain when you breathe and when you move. You think you may have cracked or broken some of your thoracic struts in the scuffle. Several of your claws are broken, and the hand you punched the rustie with is swelling up, especially the fingers with rings on. You're dizzy, shaking, hurt, and you don't _care_.

Karkat chirps at you from where he's crouched on the platform, alarm tinging the clear desire in it. You chirr back reassuringly. Everything's all right now. You'll go back to him in a minute. First you gotta move the body, 'cause you can't be havin that stinkin up his respiteblock.

It's a good thing you're still riding on a wave of adrenalin; this guy is heavy. You pitch him down the stairs into the hallway, drag him past the nutrition block, and then all the way out the front door (which is still on its hinges, barely), and leave him there. You step out past the body and then roar (your thorax screaming pain at you the whole time), daring anyone else to come have a piece of you.

Gingerly, you shut the door behind you. There. Let the body be a warning to anyone else who comes by. They'll have to go through you first to get to Karkat, and you aren't goin to let that happen.

This is what you'll do to anyone who tries.

Your shoulders sag in relief as you put it all behind you. It's done. You've proved yourself and now you're starting to feel a little ill. That could have gone so much worse. But it didn't; you won and you're alive and Karkat remains untouched and safe, and you are gonna feel fuckin good about it, damn it all. Right after you wash the blood and the feel of the intruder's meaty paws off of you.

You only take a couple minutes in the ablution trap at most, but it's apparently too long for Karkat. He finds you under the spray of the shower and climbs in with you on shaky legs, pouncing on you and ravishing you right there. You feel a new surge of adrenalin and you try to give him as good as you get, your bulge sliding into him with now-practiced ease as he tries to literally climb you like a slippery-wet tree. He's heavy, though, and your thorax throbs sharply in various places trying to keep hold of him, and you slip on the wet tiles. You go down hard. Karkat topples with you, on top of you, trying to keep your bulge jammed deep in him. You lie in the bottom of the ablution trap and let him do most of the moving; your aching ribs don't hurt as much if you stay still enough. 

He's gorgeous, all dripping wet, and you are captivated by the heat of his stare as he sinks his hips onto you over and over. It's a desperate, frantic fuck, more intense than any before (excepting that first time), and you feel like Kar is taking you apart as he rides you for all you're worth. He's yours, you're his, and this-- _this_ \--is what it means to be alive. He could devour you with his nook and you'd die happy.

After it's over, you pull him up closer to lie beside you so you can kiss his face all over. He's started up a rumbling purr that soothes straight through you. For a while you just lie there and breathe with him in his ablution trap with the water still pouring over you both, fascinated by the rhythmic flap of his gills as his opercula flex under the water. When it starts running cool even to you, you know it's time to get up.

He makes a protesting noise as you awkwardly sit up, hissing as your thorax stabs sharp pain through you, and it takes some coaxing to get him to let you go. All the while you're whispering promises and sweet chirrups. You ain't leavin, just shifting things to make you both comfortable. You turn the water off and then wrap a towel around your hips and bundle Karkat up into your arms, gritting your teeth against the pain as you move to pick him up. Your abused back muscles and your scratched-up arms also protest pretty loudly, but you don't complain as you carry him all the way back to his block. You collapse on the pailing platform with him, still wrapped in warm towels. The sun is starting to come up, and you are both safe, clean, and warm. You curl against him and fall into exhausted sleep.

 

You wake to Karkat snuffling in his sleep, nosing at your neck and pressing his wiggly into your belly. You hum, and stretch as much as your body will allow without pain, and nuzzle a kiss into his hair. You blink owlishly at the drawn curtains and reach for your glasses where they've fallen into the sheets. Once they're on your face you have a look at the clock (8:30) and decide it must be early evening by now. It'd be brighter in here if it was 8:30 in the morning. 

You should eat something. But first you should take care of Karkat.

You take your time with it this time, touching him softly all over, memorizing the curves of his compact frame. He is sturdy and solid and warm, such a contrast to your slender frame and chilled core. But you fit together so nice. He's more awake now, getting greedy again, making fussy growls at the slow pace you're setting. God, you love him. Both your bulges twine and pulse together, long violet engulfing thick red, and it's fucking heaven. You can tell he wants more, though. He's got his dripping nook pressed to your thigh now, feeling like slick hot velvet. You kiss one sweet nubby horn and then take it into your mouth, sucking hard to make him moan. You breathe deeply, drowning in the intoxicating scent of him—freshly washed hair, sleep-warm skin, something sweet and musky and all his own. Your hands slowly caress his gills, his back, and then you grip his firm ass with both of your hands and squeeze. Mmm, nobody's got a finer ass than Kar. You rumble your appreciation, still mouthing at his horn. He gasps and trills, rutting against you hard, and finally you shift and get him into a position that allows your bulge to seek and find his wanting nook. You take him in soft, deliberate pulses. He ripples around you and you groan long and low. Fuck, that's fuckin good. The slow build is driving Karkat mad. He growls and presses himself against you hard so that his throbbing bulge gets trapped between your bellies and ruts against you, looking for more sweet friction, and you let your bulge give a lazy twisting lash in him. It makes him keen. He comes first, groaning with the force of it, splashing a small amount of bright red slurry onto you both. His insides squeeze you, and this time you can feel it as his seedflap opens to take your material, and whoa, wow, that's it—you cry out as the first wave of orgasm hits you, your slurry spilling over and out of you, getting pulled deeply into him, filling him. You shudder and hold him close, your face buried in his hair, your breath stirring tufts of it with each panting puff of air. He's so full of your material now that his belly has a visible swell to it, and it's taut to the touch. He purrs in fits and starts as you rub it while you come down. It's so good. So good. That's you, in him.

Eventually, you manage to stir enough to get up. Food. Right, that's a thing you both still need. Water, too. You feel boneless and weightless as you shift yourself up and murmur softly that you'll be right back, and the floating feeling persists as you wobble downstairs and out to the nutrition block. Sleep and sex have done you good—you don't hurt quite as bad as you probably ought after the beating you took earlier.

It takes some poking around to find anything fit to eat in Karkat's nutrition block. He mostly has instant noodles, frozen dinners, cereal, and roe cubes; seriously, how does he live on this stuff? You guess technically it's edible, but it's nowhere near the level of quality you're used to. You find some cluckbeast eggs in the thermal hull, and there's grainloaf on the counter. That's fresh enough for your tastes, and fast and easy to cook too. You hum as you set up your workspace—plates out, slices of grainloaf in the toaster, I-can't-believe-it's-not-musclebeast-butter tub ready to go. You take out the best frying pan you can find. Honestly, you're impressed—it's actual cast iron, satisfyingly heavy in your hand. High quality! You put it on the stove and turn up the heat to ready it.

You're pulling the cluckbeast eggs out of the thermal hull when the tiny throwing knife pierces your left bicep.

Eggs splatter against the floor as you drop them. What the fresh fuckin hell?! You clutch at the knife to pull it out. Snarling, fins flared, you scan the room to find out where it came from. Someone's here that really shouldn't be. Apparently the body outside didn't do enough to deter another intruder.

You hear movement to your left behind the eating plateau and snap your head around toward it. Got her. There's a small troll with wickedly pointed horns sniffing the air and glowering at you as she readies another knife. This one knows you ain't the one in heat and isn't taking her chances, apparently. That is no kind of good. She throws the next knife and you barely manage to dodge it as it whizzes by and clatters off the cabinets behind you. While you're off your guard she snickers and makes a mad dash down the hall and then up the stairs toward Karkat. What, was she thinking she'd incapacitated you with her ridiculously tiny throwing knife instead of just irritating the hell out of you? You growl and snatch the heavy skillet off the stove and chase after her.

As soon as you have her in your sight, you lob the one egg you still have in your hand at her. It's not much as far as weapons go, but it does what you need it to. It splatters against the back of her head, catching her attention just before she manages to get to Kar's respiteblock. She shrieks and claws at the egg goop in her hair and whirls on you like she's morally affronted you came after her. What the fuckin hell did she expect?

You climb the stairs two at a time and get almost within reach. You raise the pan with both arms and—okay, you fail at that. Your left arm hangs limp at your side, the pan lifted in just your right. Oh, _fuck her_ , she drugged you? Whatever, it's just that arm that's gone pins-and-needles numb. You don't let it slow you down.

She rattles the door to Karkat's block, her grip slippery with egg. Hah. You're close enough now you can take a swing at her. Your reach is long, and the pan connects with her shoulder as she frantically tries to get into Kar's block. The breath gets knocked out of her and you can smell burning flesh as she screams. Oh yeah, your pan was hot. You raise your arm for another blow, but she gets her bearings back _fast_ , and ducks your skillet even as she slashes out at your leg with another one of her stupid knives.

“Fuckin poisonous _hag_ ,” you spit, stumbling to one knee as your right leg starts to go numb from the knee down, violet blood streaking down your shin from the cut she made. You can hear Karkat rattle-hissing from inside his block, and the sound gets louder as the intruder manages to finally open the door. She's going for him, chittering at him and lifting up her skirt to expose her bulge, and you see _red_. No, no, _fuckin HELL no_ , you will _slice her bulge right off_ before she violates Kar with it.

Karkat is crouched into an angry ball, teeth bared and claws digging into the platform beneath him. She's two steps from the bed when you manage to heave yourself up behind her on your good leg and slam the iron skillet down on her head one-handed as hard as you possibly can. There's the sickening crack of shattering horn and bone, and she goes down in a crumpled heap in front of the platform.

You go down beside her heavily on your ass, the numbness spreading up your bad leg. Your vision is going blurry, and you can't catch your breath. Pain is shooting through your thoracic cage, you're still shaking and growling with rage, and you can't calm down. The threat is gone. You've killed her. Still, you raise the pan again. You have to make _sure_. She almost had Kar, she almost--almost--

You gasp when you feel a hand touch your cheek—she can't be alive still!--relax when you realize it's Karkat. It can't be her. You glance down to make sure... one whole side of her head is crushed in, yellow-green blood oozing out with the grey matter. You want to be sick.

Karkat's squatting beside you now, and there's concern through the heat-glaze of his eyes. He gives you a shoosh-trill, and you feel the fight to out of you... you let the iron skillet fall out of your grip and clatter to the floor.

“'M okay,” you whisper shakily, leaning in to his hand. You're not sure how true that is, considering, but you put on a brave face. If you're poisoned and dying, Kar doesn't need to know that. He chirps softly to you, and presses his weight against your shoulder. You sit there with him for a few minutes, trying to get your breath back. She almost got him. She was a step away. You feel sick, but there's a fierce pride warming your chest. You protected him not once, but _twice_ now.

Karkat nudges you, gets himself beneath your good arm, and then starts to stand, lifting you a bit. You wince, but you get the idea. It takes a few tries, but you manage to stand with his help and hobble away from the mess of the corpse. You collapse in the hall and slide down the stairs on your ass one at a time—bump, bump, bump, jarring every bruised bone in your body--until you're outside the nutrition block and decide it's far enough. Karkat nestles beside you and rubs his face against yours. The scent is dizzying, and you trill for him despite your pain and exhaustion. He's marking you. You're _his_. You're his and you'll keep him safe from as many lust-addled trolls as come to call, even if it's with your last dying breath.

 

You come to a while later, groggy and with your mouth feeling like it's stuffed with cotton nubs, but still alive. Karkat is still tucked into your side like he never left. You're an aching mess, but you find you can move the fingers of your left hand again, and wiggle the toes of your right foot. The feeling and coordination aren't completely back, but it's a start. You heave a sigh of relief. Not poisoned dead. Not paralyzed permanent-like.

Your sigh jostles Karkat, and he cracks an eye. When he notices you're awake, he trills excitedly and rubs his face against your side, then straddles you. You shouldn't be surprised he's dripping and needy again. How long does this heat thing last anyway?

Whatever, your bulge is fine even if the rest of you isn't doing so hot, and Karkat manages to coax it out and into him without too much trouble. You let him do all the work, too tired and achy and numb to do much for him this time. He doesn't seem to care, and once he's milked you of slurry and found some relief, he's content to lie boneless on top of you for a while. You drift into unconsciousness again.

 

Around midnight (you think—time's gone all funny) you manage to heave yourself upright and into the nutrition block. You down three entire glasses of tap water in desperate gulps. Better. Much better. You bring some water to Karkat and then set the kettle to boil for instant noodles. Fuck cooking, there aren't any more cluckbeast eggs left anymore and you don't want to look at another frying pan yet. Just thinking about that girl upstairs makes you want to heave. 

After you and Karkat eat, you retreat to the livingblock and make base on the couch. The troll Princess Bride videogrub is still in, so you turn it on to have something familiar and comforting playing while you cuddle with (and ocassionally fuck) Karkat. Thankfully, the last intruder left the door on its hinges so at least there's the semblance of safety. You really just don't even want to think about it right now, but your fins twitch every time the wind blows wrong. You're on high alert. No way you're letting anyone else get the drop on you.

That's why you aren't taken by surprise when the next fuckin despicable pan-fried idiot comes sniffing after Karkat. Of course they come while you're bulge-deep in him. No sense a propriety, this one. You pull out roughly, and try to shush Karkat when he protests loudly. You got to. Do this thing. Protecting now. You had the forethought to grab the biggest meat cleaver you could find in the nutrition block and brought it with you when you made camp out here, so you ready it at the first sound of footsteps and get your wrecked body between the door and the couch, blocking Kar.

Your muscles are still shaky from whatever drug the last intruder stuck you with, but you stand your ground, naked with your bulge waving between your thighs, as the door gets kicked in. It creaks loudly on its failing hinges as it swings open benignly. Blighted asshole didn't even try to see if it was unlocked before splintering it up. You snarl.

This troll is more hormone-addled than the last. His eyeballs swim in his head as he enters and looks around for the source of the pheromones. He chirps a strangled mating call at you before he even spots Karkat. You growl a warning that vibrates through your entire aching thoracic cavity, showing your shark teeth and fanning your fins as wide as they'll go. Just 'cause your bulge is out doesn't mean you're going to fuck just anybody, least of all _him_. And neither is Kar.

He seems to realize you're going to be a problem and tries to focus as he lifts a huge sword. You swallow thickly. This fucker is going to be good at close combat. Just your fuckin luck. 

All the sounds Karkat is making are just encouraging the new intruder, too. Karkat is making such pitiful plaintive trills, too lost in his heat to register the threat. You can't blame him; you had to leave him mid-fuck. You trill at Karkat, letting him know you're still here and you'll be back to give him what he needs in a minute.

You just got to get rid of this presumptuous shitsponge first. You decide to go troll Inigo Montoya on his ass.

“Hello,” you growl, “my name is Eridan Ampora. You want my matesprit. Prepare to die.”

You advance a step.

The other troll looks at you, perplexed, as though words are too complicated for him right now. You know the feeling. The pheromones Kar's giving off wake something ferally instinctual in you, too. Somehow you've moved past it, sort of. Enough that you can put together a thought to make some words, at least. You know at this point that distraction and intimidation are your strongest weapons; you're beat to hell already and shit with hand-to-hand fighting and you fuckin know it. Sticks and stones will break your bones, but words can help you break the landlicker's concentration and resolve.

“Hello,” you say with more force, “my name is Eridan Ampora. You want my matesprit. Prepare to die.”

It's a challenge, and the intruder finally takes it as such, lunging for you with his sword. It grazes your right fin and you cry out, violet blood spattering onto the hardwood flooring and running down your face in hot rivulets.

“HELLO,” you bellow, reaching in with your cleaver to slash as he swings at you again and misses, “my name is Eridan Ampora. You want my matesprit. Prepare to DIE.”

Your cleaver catches and hacks into the flesh of his sword-wielding arm, and he howls and swings his other fist into your face. Your glasses crunch and bright light explodes behind your eye. You spit blood and a few teeth onto the floor, stagger, but keep fighting.

“H'llo. M'name's Eridan Ampora. Y'want my matesprit. Pr'pare t'die,” you mutter, blood running out of your mouth making it hard to talk. Maybe this was a shit idea.

You can't see straight, both from the blow to your head and the damage to your glasses. When you sense him rushing you again, you try to aim for his throat. You aren't fuckin around. Apparently, he isn't either.

Your knife slashes too low and opens his belly, and he brings his sword down on your shoulder. Even wrong-handed he's still besting you.

Pain sears through you. There's a deep gash in your left shoulder, violet blood pouring out of it. Fuck. You pick up your knife with your swollen right hand, the one you punched the first guy with, gripping it as tightly as you can. Nothing is going to stop you from killing this guy.

He's on his knees now, clutching at his belly, but he lifts his sword again as you charge him.

“HELLO,” you roar with all the strength you have left, “m'name's ERIDAN. AMPORA. Die. Die! DIE.”

You're on top of him, hacking the meat cleaver into him over and over, hardly feeling the desperate claws in your side tearing at your gills as he tries to defend himself, hearing the wet thuk thuk thuk as your blade sinks into him. Soon he's not moving anymore. You keep stabbing until you can no longer lift the cleaver. He's dead. He's dead. You can smell blood and spilled guts, and you know he isn't getting up again. He won't hurt you more. He won't even _touch_ Karkat.

You're furious and covered in blood. Your own and his teal are mixing sickly and pooling on the floor. You can't see, can't feel anything but burning pain, can't, can't... you crawl off the body and kick your legs to move away until your back hits the back of the couch. 

Then all the fight goes out of you and you slump there. Everything's getting fuzzy. Far off you can hear Karkat's raspy chirrs. He's safe. You smile, clutching your oozing shoulder, as darkness swims up and swallows you.


	3. Karkat, freak the fuck out

==> Karkat, freak the fuck out

What? What's there to freak out about? You're blinking blearily at the grubtube screen, vaguely aware and disappointed that troll Princess Bride has ended. You missed the whole thing. Mmmph. You roll over on the couch, burrowing your face into the cushions. You missed the whole thing because of--

Oh.

Oh fuck.

Oh god, oh fuck.

You groan into the couch cushions as you remember slowly going into heat, losing conscious control of yourself—you were there but not there, not really, not in any way that mattered. You just wanted to pail and sleep and nothing felt good or right except for Eridan's bulge deep inside you, his... his slurry filling you. You press an experimental hand to your belly. It's tight. It's tight and round—more round than usual—and there's _pressure_ inside you. It's... it's weird, but it doesn't feel _bad_ weird. Actually, it feels kind of good—warm and heavy. You do feel pretty wrecked, but also strangely warm and content. You're so thirsty your head is pounding, and your nook aches like fuck, and you feel sore all over like you just did an entire day and night of heavy sickle training, but you don't want to claw your own skin off anymore and you're not burning up. You're... you're feeling better than you were before.

You wonder vaguely how Eridan's doing. You want him close. Must be some dumb instinct, but you really want to be burrowing into his side right now for more sleep. He's probably feeling pretty drained too, and you wonder a little more coherently where he is right now. He better fucking not have left you here to wake up on your own. He wouldn't do that. He can be pretty fucking clueless, and you're sure this must not have been an easy thing to help you with (haha, understatement of the sweep?), but you don't think he'd leave before you even woke up. Maybe he wants a little distance after having to pail you constantly for you don't even know how long. Maybe he wanted to give _you_ space. You don't know. All you're sure of is that you don't want to be alone right now.

“Eridan?” Your voice comes out a rusty croak. You clear your throat and try again, a little louder so he'll probably hear you if he's awake in your hive somewhere. “Eridan?”

No answer.

Okay, you guess you'll have to go and find him. Reluctantly you stand up, stretch your arms over your head with your eyes squinched tight shut, and let out a loud sigh. 

You rub the sleep out of your eyes and then take two steps toward the nutrition block.. then stop dead in your tracks, mouth hanging open. You blink. This. This isn't. No.

Your hive. It. It's a wreck. There's blood everywhere on the floor, spattered on the walls—lots of teal, lots of... of voilet... a trail of burgundy. Your next-door neighbor Larrik, the teal, is very obviously dead and lying on your floor in front of your hive door, both the door and your neighbor very much hacked all to hell. You're sure the burgundy blood belongs to your across-the-street neighbor, Anguin; he's the only burgundy you know in spitting (or pheromone) distance. You don't need or want to follow the trail out the door to see where it leads and make sure it's him right now. Your eyes dart around. There's so much violet. Too much violet. Oh god oh fuck you're freaking out now yes you are.

“Eridan? _Eridan?!_ ” You're screaming his name, your voice cracking on it. He's not answering. Your hands are fisted in your hair. Fuck. Fuck. You can't.

You have to.

You have to find him. 

You don't have to go far. All it takes is moving around the couch and you see him. He was there the whole time, slumped against the back of the couch, inches from you, naked, bleeding, bleeding everywhere, and you didn't _know_. You lazed there wondering where he was while he was dying or already dead right behind you and oh god oh god you hate yourself so much this is all your fault it's your fault your neighbors are dead and your fault Eridan got caught up in this and your fault he's lying there in a pool of his own blood and you _hate_ yourself you will never forgive yourself if he dies too because of you and your stupid mutations and stupider decisions. You fall to your knees next to him, breathing in short fast gasps, tears clouding your eyes faster than you can blink them away.

Blindly, you reach out and pap your hand around until you find his neck, suck in a sobbing breath when you feel slick blood. You don't pull away, though, you don't let yourself pull away. Instead you press your fingers to his skin searching for the big vein to find a pulse.

Before you can, Eridan groans weakly. You think he slurs something like, “Not now, Kar. M'tired. Go back t'sleep.”

You choke on a laugh. He's alive. Okay. Okay. Everything will be okay. “Shh, shoosh, Eridan. No more pailing, I promise. It's over. Just stay with me.”

You pull your hand away from his neck and pap his cheek lightly, then swipe at your eyes with both hands. You can't cry right now; you have to see how bad the damage is, so you can fix it. Fix _him_.

You take a few deep breaths, steadying yourself. This will be bad, but you just have to push everything you're feeling down and work through it. You can fall apart later, when the danger's passed. Right now Eridan needs you.

When you open your eyes again, you can see clearly. You swallow thickly, mouth set in a tight line. You start your examination of his condition. He's in bad shape. Lacerations to his fin and his lip. His glasses are shattered, so you gently pull them off of his face. The broken plastic didn't get into his eye, but you do pick a few shards out of his cheekbone. One eye is swollen almost shut, puffy and purpled-black. There's a deep cut in his left shoulder that's still oozing blood, and his arm is just _soaked_ in it, oh god. The rest seems small compared to that—scratches and lacerations all over his forearms, claw marks and tears through his gills on the left side. Tenderly, you move him, lifting his arm so you can see the extent of the wound. His shoulder is where most of the blood is coming from; you can see it pooling beneath him. You'll have to sew that gash up, and fast; Eridan's already lost so fucking much blood.

All right. You can do this. You have a kit especially for stitching wounds; you'd be fucking stupid not to have one since you're a clumsy fuck-up and slice yourself with your sickles pretty much daily, and you'd also have to be out of your pan to let anyone else work on you with your mutant red blood. So. You've done this before. You got this.

You take shuddering breaths all the way to the ablution block to get the kit, talking yourself up in your head. You sew up your own wounds all the time. Even stitched a little cut in one of your gills once, so it should be a piece of cake to fix Eridan's too, once you get his shoulder done. You think. And you know how to make nice even stitches that heal so well you can hardly see a scar after. Yeah. You're good at this. You keep telling yourself all this, and it keeps the panic at bay.

Your movements are mechanical as you wash your hands and arms and then gather your supplies. Within minutes you're ready.

“Eridan? Can you wake up?” You kneel down next to him again, ignoring the dead body not four feet away.

He moans when you pap his face, blinking blearily at you. “Jus' five more minutes.”

You huff out a breathy laugh and give him a wobbly smile. “This might take a little longer than that. I'm gonna close up your wounds now, okay? But first I gotta douse it with antiseptic, and this shit burns. Just,” you swallow, “just so you know.”

“Mmhh,” Eridan murmurs, closing his eyes and relaxing into your hand. He didn't even hear you. Fuck, this is gonna suck so bad.

You've got a warm washcloth and a bowl of water, and you try to wash him off before you use the antiseptic. He whines a protest and tries to shift away from you, and you steady him with a hand to his right shoulder, the undamaged one. God, there's so much blood. Your washcloth comes back entirely violet, and the water stains when you try to rinse it out.

Once the whole gash is clean as you can get it, it's time to disinfect. You take a deep breath, exhaling sharply. Okay. “Eridan, this is going to hurt. Do you hear me? It's going to hurt a lot, and I need you to stay still. Can you do that for me?”

You cup his face and tilt it up to try and meet his unfocused gaze. Fuck, he's too out of it.

It's got to be done anyway. You steel yourself and take one of his hands in your own, squeezing it reassuringly. Preemptively, you start shooshing him, a gentle sussurrus of sound. Then with your free hand you soak a clean washcloth with liquid disinfectant, spread it out, and press it to the entire length of the wound.

Eridan yelps and hisses, swinging his good arm at you and catching you in the shoulder. It sends you sprawling. He's growling now, spitting venomously to the phantom he sees in you, “You can't touch him, I won't fuckin let you touch Kar--”

Shit, he's strong even after losing so much blood, but you know how to deal with highblood rage. Frantically, you get up and shoosh him, pap his face, still his arms, make him listen and see it's _you_. Soon he quiets to a whimper, and diluted violet tears start tracking down his cheeks. At least he's looking at you more clearly now.

“K-Kar? Oh god, what have I--” His voice is wavering, especially over the w's and v's, his wigglerhood speech impediment coming back full force.

“Shoooosh. Sorry. I'm so sorry, Eridan,” you say shakily, “Next part's going to be worse. I have to stitch it up.”

“Kar,” Eridan whispers brokenly. Oh god, the aching warmth he's looking at you with is choking you up again. You look away.

“Yeah, I'm here. Were you listening? It's going to _hurt_.” You take his hand again. This time, he squeezes yours. Feebly, but he does.

“S'okay.” He tries a smile that turns into a grimace halfway through. “Already hurts bad. Do what you gotta. I promise... not to fuckin hit you again. Ever.”

You nod and squeeze his hand. “I know it was an accident. Just... get ready.”

He grits his teeth as you line the threaded needle up and slide it through his flesh. You start at the top of his shoulder and work your way down, making small, even stitches. He's very still, and very patient, even when you fuck up and drop the needle with your jittery hand. 

It's a long wound and it's not as clean a cut as your sickles make, but you persevere until it's all closed. As soon as you tie off the thread, you exhale loudly. There. The worst of the bleeding is contained. Now he won't die. You hope.

Next, you work on his lacerated gills. This time he's ready for it when you have to pour on the burning disinfectant, though he chokes on a scream as some of it filters into the delicate, torn filaments. You grimace in sympathy, and try to be quick as you stitch up one sliced opercula and then the next, making him flex so you're sure he can still open them as you work. He winces and his breath hitches on a whimper every so often, but he does so well for you.

You swallow the fear that wants to bubble up in you. Sure, you closed the worst wounds, but what if there are more where you can't see? What if he's bleeding inside where you can't go? You bite your lip and tamp down everything you're feeling. It's not time to feel yet. You aren't anywhere near finished. You blink and hold back the tears that threaten to fall.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Eridan agrees. His eyes are glazed, but he's still with you, still in a lot of pain but trying to smile for you. Fuck. Your pump biscuit swells and aches. You suck in a breath and absolutely _do not_ tear up again.

“If... if I move you, will you be all right?” you ask, your voice surprisingly steady. “I really want to clean you up the rest of the way, get those other cuts closed.” You make a sweeping gesture. Cuts on his face, cuts on his arms, cuts on his legs. He's a bleeding mess and you want _all of it_ cleaned and stitched shut, or at least bandaged.

“Kar, you don't got to,” Eridan murmurs, eyes slipping shut.

“Hey. _Hey._ ” You snap your fingers in front of his face to get his attention. His eyes track your hand slowly. Good. “Yes, I do 'got to'. You can't just lie here soaking in your own blood. I'm not letting you die on me. There's enough bodies in my hive as it is...”

He smiles again, his fins flaring, the injured one trembling as he does. “I killed 'em,” he says, full of pride. “Kept 'em off a you. I did good.”

Oh, fuck, you're queasy. He killed your neighbors. Not that you were close with any of them, but you knew them, knew their names, knew their lawnring habits. Larrik isn't going to be playing fetch with his lusus outside on nice nights anymore. Anguin's nicely-tended lawnring is going to go to shit because he won't be there to keep it pristine like he likes. You... you aren't happy they're dead in your hive. It must show on your face, because Eridan's fins start to droop.

“Right, Kar? I did good?”

You can't look him in the eye. Slowly, you nod. “Yeah. Yeah, real good Eridan.”

He did it for _you_. You aren't sure how good you really feel about it, but he did keep them from—oh god, you want to heave—from forcefully pailing you while you were incapable of defending yourself properly. You... you kind of hazily remember the sense of intruders? Someone not-Eridan, someone not-familiar coming into your space. You're pretty sure if he wasn't there to carry you through it, if he wasn't giving you the sex your body was demanding, you would have someone else's slurry in you right now. And at the time it would have felt _good_ , whether or not you fucking wanted it. You press a trembling hand to your swollen belly. You're... really relieved it's just his in there.

_Anyway_ , it's your fault your neighbors came into danger in the first place. _You_ lured them here with your stupid fuck-happy pheromones. So. Eridan just did what he had to, what _your_ pheromones were instinctually telling him to do. You can't blame _him_ for all the carnage. If everyone is dead, you have no one to blame but yourself. He did good.

You meet Eridan's eyes. “Thank you.”

He trills weakly at you, and your pusher breaks.

No, not going to cry, not yet, not now. You swallow an answering chirr, clear your throat, and get to work. It's time to get him up and out of here. You square your stance and shift your arms beneath his knees and his back, getting ready to lift with your sturdy legs. “Put your arm around my shoulder. I'm about haul your sorry ass to the ablution block.”

 

It's harder than it looks, hefting a fuckoff-tall seadweller down a long hallway and up some stairs, then down another hallway to your ablution block. It's hard, but you manage it. You have to stop and rest a few times, and you try hard each time to stop in a spot that _isn't_ covered in dried or still-tacky blood. Holy fuck, it's everywhere. You can't worry about that now.

Once you have Eridan where you want him—lying in the ablution trap—you rinse him off with the shower head and then run a warm bath around him and let him soak while you gently clean his wounds. You know it's incredibly pale, everything you've done for him since you woke up has been, and you just... can't care. You need Eridan to _not_ die right now, and you're the only one around to make sure that doesn't happen, and... and you pity him. He's fucking pitiful as fuck, all torn up protecting _you_. You're not pale for him, though. Maybe... a little flushed, but that could be the hormones talking. Fuck, you don't know. All you know is you need him alive.

A few times, Eridan starts slipping back into unconsciousness. You decide to sew bits of him up when he threatens that; you can't have him passing out on you. Not when you're so scared he won't wake up again. Eventually you get him all cleaned and stitched, and you breathe a sigh of relief.

He looks so much better when you're finished with him. Still covered in cuts and stitches and bruises, and wow, you are going to ice his eye and his right hand as soon as you get him out of here. Both are swollen all to hell. His gills are filtering water fine, thankfully, though he grimaces when you make him submerge and draw clean water through the injured ones, and they flutter too fast like he can't get enough air the whole time he's under. Watching him soak up the water makes you realize how thirsty you still are and how achey-dry your own gills are getting, so you let him rest for a minute while you drink from the tap. You aren't leaving him alone like this, even though he can't exactly drown in the tub or anything.

You get him dried and bandaged, and he seems to be doing a little bit better by the time you're through. Still weak and out of it, but he can stand on his own, which gives you hope. You sit him on the closed load gaper and tell him you're going to go grab him some of your extra clothes, and you're surprised when he grabs your arm.

“Kar! Wait.” His glazed eyes are wide. A stricken look comes over his face. “Don't go in your respiteblock. It ain't a good place to be right now.”

Oh god. Oh god, what's in your respiteblock? You can feel the panic and fear clawing at the back of your throat, and you have to swallow several times to keep it down.

“Why?” you ask evenly.

“There's another one in there. A real bad one,” he says, his voice low. “Trust me, you don't want to see her.”

Her? Oh god oh shit oh god oh shit, another one of your neighbors is lying dead in your hive, in your _respiteblock_. You want to scream. You want to vomit. You swallow hard, take a deep shuddering breath, and tamp it down.

“Okay. Okay,” you mutter. “I'll be quick, then.”

You need clothes and... and you have to see who it is.

Eridan shakes his head. “You're askin for dayterrors,” he says, but he lets go of your wrist. “I had to do it, Kar. M'sorry. And, um... sorry about your pan.”

Your pan? You've seen dead bodies before, there's a rather gruesome one lying in your fucking livingblock for fuck's sake; your pan will be fine if you see one more. You set your jaw and tell Eridan you'll be right back.

 

He was right. He was right; you shouldn't have looked. Your neighbor from two doors down, Ysilda, is in your block (which is trashed all to hell). Her head is smashed and your whole block reeks of death. You always kind of liked her, despite the fact that she was high on your potential threat list. She was clever and dangerous. She didn't deserve to go like this.

You find your best iron skillet dented and covered in gore next to her. Your pan. This is what Eridan was apologizing for? Maybe this and the one in your head.

You grab what you need and don't look back.

 

Once you rinse yourself off (and try to wash all the thoughts from your head), and the both of you are clothed again, you retreat to one of your spare blocks. Your hive is sprawlingly big, and while only some of the rooms are ever really lived in, you find yourself praising past-grubling-Karkat a lot for building so prodigiously. The extra block doesn't have a recuperacoon in it; you use it for storing all your dark season snuggleplanes and pillows and extra sweaters and shit. There's enough of that to make a decent-sized pile for you and Eridan, though. It's good enough.

You get him settled first, making sure he's comfortable, then decide to venture to the nutrition block for ice and something for you both to eat. Your stomach is still queasy but rumbling loudly, and you're sure Eridan could keep down at least some soup broth. Rest can wait. There's too much to do yet.

When you get downstairs, you hear Crabdad scuffling outside and screeching. Oh god. Oh no. The bodies. Your lusus, your _corpse-loving lusus_ , is home, and there are bodies everywhere like a fucking gourmet buffet, and your pusher is hammering in your throat. You have to stop him.

You go running toward the sound, don't even think about it when you hop over Larrik's corpse, and find your lusus scrabbling at Anguin's (oh god, it _is_ Anguin's) dead body outside the door. He's making distressed clicks and screeches, tearing at the body like it's a confusingly delicious threat.

“No, Crabdad, NO. He's dead, he's fucking _dead_. You do not fucking eat dead trolls!” you screech.

You shoo him off, feeling the panic bubbling up again. Fuck oh fuck that's your _neighbor_ he's ripping into, he can't, it's so wrong and bad and how the fuck are you going to move all these bodies where are you going to put them oh my fucking god how are you ever going to live in your hive again fuck fuck fuck oh god oh fuck-- You can't breathe. You're gasping in air fast, too fast, so fast your gills are fluttering uselessly to try and help, and your bloodpusher is pounding like a tiny flapbeast trapped in your thorax. You can't—you _can't_ deal with this anymore!

You fall to your knees on the stoop, your head in your hands. “Noooo no no no please make it stop please oh god no--”

Crabdad comes and snuffles your hair, and you reach out to cling to him. He chitters at you, and you let out a strangled sob into his carapace. You can't hold it all in anymore. You choke and then allow yourself to cry in your lusus' warm, solid embrace, deep ugly wracking sobs that shake right through you. Crabdad curls his armored body around you, shielding you from the world.

“Everything's fucked up,” you sniffle, once the worst of the crying is over. “So fucked up. I... I don't know what to do anymore. I'm scared. I'm _so fucking scared_.”

Crabdad rumbles and clacks reassuringly at you, probably just happy you're safe. You _feel_ safer with him here with you. You let yourself stay in that comforting illusion a little while longer, until your knees start to ache and the smell of death starts getting to you. Then you take a shuddering breath and straighten up. Pat your lusus on his head. Okay. That's enough of that. Breakdown over. You have to get yourself together.

You wipe your face on your sleeve, smearing snot and tears all over the clean cloth. Who fucking cares. At least it's not blood.

You have to take care of Eridan and deal with the rest of this mess now.


	4. Karkat, ask for help

==> Karkat, ask for help

You think... you need Gamzee right now. He'll help you deal with the bodies, you know he will. And the blood. And... and the everything.

Thank fuck your husktop is untouched and just the way you left it. You sit in your nice, familiar chair facing the window and just don't think about the carnage in the room behind you.

When you open up Trollian you find a few messages waiting for you. Sollux wondering where you are, and saying he needs you to look at something. It's probably a virus. Yeah, you aren't opening that. You tell him as much, just to show you're still around, then block him. You don't feel like engaging right now. Then there's Terezi asking if she'll get to taste red text from you soon now that you're fully pupated and anyone can see the color in your eyes anyway. A quick NO is her answer. She's not online right now, so you don't have to worry about a reply right away. And then... you let out a breath you didn't know you were holding. Gamzee. Asking how his best bro is. He's online, and you are so, so glad.

CG: HOW AM I? I'M FUCKING TERRIBLE.  
CG: GAMZEE, COULD YOU

_Fuck,_ your fingers are quaking on the keys. You shouldn't be so afraid to ask for help. He's your moirail. Your fucking palemate. That's what he's there for. You grit your teeth and continue.

CG: COULD YOU COME OVER  
CG: MAYBE?  
TC: SuRe, BeSt dIaMoNdBrO. WhAt yOu gOt a nEeD oF Me oN FoR AlL A SuDdEn?

You bite your lip. What should you even tell him? Where do you even start? 

You take so long to figure out what to say that Gamzee starts to worry.

TC: KaRkAt? I GoT A SwEeT BoTtLe oF FaYgO WiTh YoUr nAmE AlL Up oN It.   
TC: TeLl a bRoThEr wHaT'S StIcKiN In yOuR PaN.  
CG: I   
CG: I WENT INTO HEAT WHILE ERIDAN WAS HERE FOR MOVIE NIGHT  
CG: AND HE HELPED ME  
CG: BUT NOW THERE'S BODIES  
CG: DEAD ONES  
CG: ALL OVER MY HIVE  
TC: ShIt tHaT SoUnDs AlL KiNdS Of UnChIlL. yOu Ok MoThErFuCkEr?  
CG: YEAH. I MEAN. I'M NOT HURT! BUT I'M NOT EXACTLY FUCKING FINE EITHER.  
CG: I JUST  
CG: REALLY NEED YOU RIGHT NOW  
CG: I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO  
TC: AlL RiGhT I GoT YoU.  
CG: ERIDAN'S HERE TOO. HE'S HURT BAD. I'M TAKING CARE OF HIM SO HE DOESN'T DIE.  
CG: JUST  
CG: PLEASE  
CG: COME OVER?  
CG: I CAN'T DEAL WITH ALL THIS BY MYSELF.  
CG: I NEED

There's more, but your fingers are stuck on the keyboard again, your vision getting blurred by stupid unshed tears.

TC: DoN'T YoU WoRrY; tHeRe's eNoUgH DaRk fOr mE GeT To yOu tOnIgHt. EvEn cAn RiDe mY BitChTiTs uNiCyClE NoW I'M GrOwN EnOuGh tO ReAcH ThE PeDaLs!  
TC: I'Ll bE ThErE QuIcK  
CG: THANK YOU, GAMZEE.   
TC: Of moThErFuCkIn cOuRsE BeSt fRiEnD 

You smile weakly and swipe a frond over your face. Gamzee's coming. You know it's not going to be as quick as he thinks—he lives a long way off from your hive—but it still warms your pusher to know he's on his way. That you don't have to fix everything alone.

 

Okay.

There's one thing you need to fix on your own asap, you decide.

The slurry still in you needs to come out. That's what happens in all the schoolfeedings on pailing... you have to release it so the drones can collect your mixed genetic material. If it doesn't come out, you could get an infection. You really don't want to be ill as the cherry on top of the shit sundae your life has become, so.

You head back into the ablutions block (pointedly not looking at any of the corpses or colorful spatters all around you as you go), and squat over the load gaper. You don't need a pail. Not like anyone's collecting your mutant slurry.

It's not fun or comfortable. For one thing, your nook is incredibly sore from all the pounding it's taken the past few nights. And for another, you just aren't feeling it. If you never have to pail again, it'll be too soon, you think. You wince as you feel around deep inside your nook, trying to find your seedflap so you can coax it open. 

It hurts.

After a while you get frustrated and just jam your fingers in as far as they'll go. Your claws scrape against your abused shame globes, and you cry out in pain. Fuck. _Fuck_. Why is this so hard? It's like... like your seedflap just isn't _there_ where it's supposed to be, like you don't even have one, but that can't be true or you wouldn't be fucking swollen up with material. It's like it's sealed shut or something. What the fuck.

Finally you have to give up. You pull your fingers out of you and let your red-glistening hand dangle at your side, leaning back on the load gaper and taking deep shuddering breaths. Okay. Maybe you're infected already, and this is what it does—swells you up, makes you feel heavy and warm, until you burst. Maybe you're just fucked in every single orifice you own.

You choke on a laugh. Your whole existence is a great cosmic joke.

 

Once you've calmed down a little, you clean up and decide you're going to get some answers. After you find your palmhusk, you carry it with you back upstairs to your safe room. Eridan's sleeping in the pile where you left him, breathing steadily, and you settle yourself next to him without a word. You're so exhausted, you want to sleep too, but you have to know if you're about to die of nook rot before you pass out.

Now that your head isn't clouded by heat, it's easier to concentrate and find information. You learn that your symptoms don't really indicate nook rot or slurry retention infection, which is fucking weird, but good, you guess. You page through a few more articles on pailing and proper slurry release. You were doing it right...

It's when you decide to look up more about heat that you figure out what the fuck is wrong with you. You don't like what you find. Long, long ago, trolls used to bear their own eggs, yeah, blahblah, you think you knew that already. You read on and find out sometimes trolls that are pupated with the heat-inducing mutation now also have the ability to do that, too. Well, fuck. Of course, it's grounds for immediate culling. Can't have grubs running around in battleships. Can't have adult trolls out on missions distracted by grub-rearing duties. Report the incident to your nearest superior, brave Alternian soldier! The system will take care of the offender!

Not that you weren't already slated for culling, but wow. Fuck your life forever!

You don't realize you're making raspy whimpering sounds until Eridan stirs beside you. Oh hell. You shut yourself up.

You're probably gravid. You're... you're carrying his grubs right now. You don't know what the fuck to do with that.

You didn't ask for this. You didn't want this!

You roll over on your side away from Eridan and wrap an arm around your stomach, feeling the new roundness and firmness of it. Grubs. You can't bring grubs into this shitty world. What if they're hatched with all your hideous mutations? How are they going to find a lusus if they're not in the brooding caverns? They're... they're not _sanctioned_ or registered grubs; they won't even have the advantage you did of having an allowance and a hive to live in, they won't be able to hide in plain sight like you have all these sweeps. They'll end up grubloaf.

You thought maybe your tearducts had dried up for a while, but haha, nope! You're crying again, silently as you can, holding yourself and feeling more sick and alone than you ever have in your entire life.

“...Kar?”

Shit. Shit, fucking great, you've woken Eridan with your blubbering.

There's a hand on your shoulder, and you curl in on yourself, away. “Go back to sleep,” you mutter thickly.

Eridan takes his hand back, shifts a bit. You can hear him breathing. You can tell he wants to hold you, and you're selfishly glad he's keeping his distance. You... you actually kind of _want_ him to wrap you up in his arms, but you're so angry at yourself and your stupid mutations and so confused over whether you're flushed for him or it's just _hormones_ that you don't want to give in to that particular urge right now. You're glad he's not pushing it.

“I'm sorry,” he whispers.

Fuck, you hate yourself. It's not his fault. None of this is really his fault. 

“Yeah. Me too.” 

You shut your eyes and cry yourself to sleep.

 

You're woken you don't know how much later by Eridan thrashing in the pile beside you. He's growling, clawing at the air. You sit bolt upright and shake your head groggily. For a moment you think he's having a fit, but then you notice his eyes are shut and the one that isn't swollen black is moving fast behind his sunken lid.

“Kar. Kar! No, you can't, that's my _matesprit_ \--” His voice is raw, and he's obviously fighting whatever's attacking in his sleep, and oh god, you hope it's just in his dreams he considers you his matesprit, because, wow, you still haven't agreed to jack shit.

“Eridan. ERIDAN. Wake the fuck up, you're having a dayterror,” you say, loudly enough that it should wake him. You keep clear of his claws and pap at his face, bringing him around faster.

He goes still, blinking fast and heaving in breaths, his brow creased with confusion. “Oh god, they were after you, Kar,” he chokes out. “All the ones I had to kill. They were turned into daywalkers and they were eatin you alive instead a goin after me, and I couldn't—I couldn't--”

He breaks off with a sob, and you shush him, brushing the damp hair out of his eyes. “It was just a dream. I'm fine. The dead are still dead.”

Eridan gives you a watery smile and lifts his hand to twine his fingers through yours. 

You stiffen. You... you want to comfort him. But it's too much, just after he's called you his _matesprit_ without warning.

You pull your hand away and cross your arms over your chest. His smile falters and it hurts to watch him realize you want your distance, but, well. You care about him, and you feel alarmingly soft toward him still, but... But you're _not_ his matesprit. Maybe you should clarify that for him.

“Are you all right?” you ask lamely.

He sniffs. “Yeah. I'm fuckin rattled, and sore as hell, but... yeah. What about you?”

“You called me your matesprit,” you blurt out, staring down into your lap. “In your dream. You know that's not... true. Right? What you did for me while I was in heat, I asked for that yeah, but I didn't agree to be matesprits with you. I wasn't in my right mind! I'm still not! You can't just _decide_ that we're matesprits on your own because we pailed a lot and you killed some trolls for me. That's not how it works.”

That was maybe a little harsh. Too late to take it back now.

You can feel him watching you. He's not saying anything, but you can hear him breathing faster again, and you hear him move in the pile. When he speaks, his voice is barely above a whisper. “I know. I... I just hoped--”

You feel yourself tense up.

“--but I know!”

You relax again, risking a glance at his face. That was a mistake. There's pain in the crease of his brows and the depths of his eyes. He's sitting up a bit now, propped up on his good arm, clearly not capable of lifting himself further yet. Brilliant reminder that you're interrogating a fucking invalid!

He forces a laugh, and it's so strained you think it must have hurt on the way out. “I know... we're not... not matesprits. I just thought maybe--. But. Okay.” 

Eridan takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly. “If you're gonna say not ever, though, could you maybe wait to reject me proper til I've gone back home again? Please? I don't think I could stand it...”

“I didn't say never,” you hedge, picking at the hem of your shirt. You can do him this favor. You... pity him. You do. How could you not? But you're pretty sure once you tell him you're a gravid genetic reject he'll want to rethink the whole matesprit thing anyway. _If_ you tell him. You're not sure you want to risk it. You might just send him back to his hive and never talk to him again. That'd be safest. At least for him.

“All right,” he says, and there's his smile again. His fins are even perked up and wiggling a little.

Fuck him for being so cute. It's making this so much harder.

“Are you not sure 'cause of the mutant thing? 'Cause I don't care about that,” Eridan says in a rush. “Your blood color an the heat thing an all, I don't care. Once Fef's in power none a that's goin to matter anyway since she fuckin hates proper culling, an anyway I'm royalty so who's fuckin goin to challenge me? I'll keep you safe.”

Oh god. More of this. Maybe it _is_ the mutant thing, and maybe he doesn't care about it, but _you_ do. You don't want to get your hopes up that Feferi will be able to take down the fucking Condesce when she comes to challenge her, and you don't want to hear Eridan spouting off about being royalty and how it's supposedly enough to shield both himself and you from literally every bad thing that could possibly happen to you. It's too much stupidly naive hope for you to handle.

You shake your head, clenching your teeth and squeezing your eyes shut. “Shut up, nope, just shut the fuck up. I don't want to talk about it.”

“As you wish.” Eridan subsides, but there's still a faint smile on his face, and he's back to watching you with way too fucking much tenderness. 

Does he think he slipped one by you? That you don't realize 'as you wish' is Westley for 'I love you'? Maybe it wasn't such a great idea to mainline troll Princess Bride for days. You sigh and make him lie back down. “I know, Eridan. I know.”


	5. Eridan, examine yourself

==> Eridan, examine yourself

You're a right bloody fuckin mess is what you are. Even after sleeping fitfully all night and into the day, you're still tired and weak and aching. Karkat's tending you, much more than he's tending himself. The dark circles under his eyes are darker than ever, and he looks even more tired than before somehow. A while back he ventured downstairs for food and came back so spooked he barely ate anything. Made _you_ eat, though.

It's tearing you up, because you can't do anything about it and it's your fault he's so on edge. He ain't sayin so, but you know. You're the one who trashed his hive and left the dead all over for him to clean up. You wish your body could have held out a little longer so you could have made the place decent before he came out of his heat, but you had to go and almost die on him to make matters even worse. Gamzee's coming to help him fix all the shit you wrecked, and you feel guilty as hell that you fucked things up so bad he needs his palemate.

All right, maybe it's not _all_ your fault, and you oughtn't be so self-pitying to think you're the cause of all his troubles. You fuckin _know_ you're being overdramatic, but at least you're trying to keep it to your own pan and not afflict Kar with it. That's a thing you've been working on. Keepin all your shit to yourself, 'cause it just drives people away.

Kind of feels like that's already happening with Kar and he doesn't want to deal with any of your shit anymore, despite how he's tending your physical needs.

He doesn't even want you to touch him now, sweet or otherwise. That hurts after days of closeness. Especially when your hindpan keeps telling you you got to protect him still.

He needs his space.

And you know. You know you're not matesprits, you just thought... maybe after all this you might have proved what a great one you'd be. You realize that's not how it works, you _do_ , but you still wonder if there's anything more you could do to convince him.

Fef's voice in the back of your head is telling you you're sure as the tides do rise and fall going to chase him away with all your pushiness and neediness, just like you did her. For all you're not moirails with her anymore and haven't been for sweeps, hers is still the voice you hear when you know your feelings are getting out of hand. He doesn't need convincing. He needs you to lay off.

So you do.

You keep quiet and keep all your messy feelings to yourself, and swallow the chirrs that still want to escape your squawkblister whenever you get to feeling pity pangs over him as he sleeps. He's close enough to touch, but you don't dare. You curl in on yourself and close your eyes again.

 

Next time you wake you're alone, but there's movement downstairs. Your fins flare and you try to sit up too fast, your half-asleep pan thinking there's another intruder and you got to keep Karkat safe. Instead of getting up you groan and clutch your shoulder and your ribs, lying back in the pile. It's Gamzee's voice you hear downstairs anyway. It's really weird—you must still have pheromones messing with your system, 'cause even though you _know_ Gam is a friend and Kar's moirail for heaven's bleedin sake, your instincts are telling you to make him go away.

Doesn't help matters when you hear Gamzee ask what all 'up and' happened and says it's like the dark carnival came to town and why didn't he get invited. Ha fuckin ha. Kar's not amused at the joke either, and cuts in to tell Gam he better treat the corpses with the reverence they deserve and absolutely under no circumstances can he keep any of the blood for paint. You're not sure Kar quite understands what 'reverent' treatment of the dead means to a creepy clown cultist, but you got no leg to stand on saying anything about it, being the cause of all the carnage in the first place.

You shift in the pile to quiet your aches and wish you could get up and help put things right, do _something_ , but your everything hurts still. You feel so fuckin useless.

You try sleeping some more while Gamzee and Karkat set to cleaning up, but the pain throbbing in your shoulder and your gills and in your thoracic struts is such that it's not an easy thing to do.

A few hours later (at least it feels like it), the pain starts getting to be too much. You need to get into Kar's medicine cabinet for some more pills. All he has is the generic shit, none of the good stuff that comes in a well-prepared FLARPing kit, narcotics and whatnot, but you don't care. Something is better than nothing. You heave yourself up and hiss in pain, clutching your side and favoring your right leg. The wound from the throwing knife in your shin is tender and violet, but you guess it could be a lot worse. If there was poison, it wasn't very strong. You stumble down the hall, one slow step at a time, your head swimming. 

You make it halfway there when Karkat comes stomping up the stairs. He looks ragged and worn, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, arms covered to the elbow in heavy gloves that smell of blood and disinfectant. The angry look on his face when he sees you makes your fins wilt and your pump biscuit drop into your belly.

“Eridan, what the fuck?” He sounds exhausted, but he strips off his gloves and comes to brace you with his sturdy arms. “Why didn't you call for me if you needed help?”

“You got enough to do without caterin to me,” you say, wincing as he squeezes your thorax a little too hard. “I could have managed on my own.”

He snorts and shakes his head. “Just fucking call me or Gamzee next time, okay? The goddamn last thing I need is for you to hurt yourself further.”

That stings. You hear an echo of Fef's voice again, saying she's tired of keeping you from being a danger to yourself and others. And here you went and proved her right. Killed a bunch of trolls and almost killed yourself. You're a fuckin burden. The last thing Kar needs is to have to grubsit you to make sure you don't finish the job on yourself.

You try to tamp all of that awful overblown self pity down. You're just feeling sensitive and cranky because you can't do shit for yourself or for him after days of being the one doing all the caring.

You take care of your business in the ablutions block and get your pills, swallowing them with long gulps from the tap--water is fuckin fantastic—and then let Karkat help you hobble back to the pile.

“How long 'til you come and rest with me? You look fuckin awful,” you say once you're settled. You hope maybe he'll take the hint that you'd really appreciate some company.

He looks bone-tired, but he shakes his head. “Can't yet.” He worries at his lip, picking dirt from under his claws. “The blood... it won't come out of the floorboards. And the front door needs boarding. And Gamzee's not back yet from doing whatever he's doing with the dead bodies... I can't sleep yet.”

“I'm sorry, Kar,” you say, that awful gnawing feeling of uselessness creeping back into your pan. “I wish I could help.”

He shakes his head, letting out a long, tired sigh. “Just rest.”

He hesitates a moment, then leans in and presses a soft, dry kiss to your forehead. So fuckin tender. You sigh, content to do as he says. When he leaves, you bury your face against the blankets and coats and pillows in the pile; they smell like dust and like him. You inhale deeply, and try to sleep.

 

You must have been successful, because you wake to quiet voices nearby. Karkat and Gamzee, speaking softly. Karkat's voice is rough and watery, like he's been crying, and Gamzee's voice is low and warm and sweet like molasses, and you know. They're having a feelings jam. You're not meant to hear anything; it's fuckin indecent for you to be listening in.

If they're doing it in here, though, it must mean they couldn't get the rest of the hive in good enough shape for Karkat to feel comfortable anywhere else. That makes your pump biscuit clench. You stay still and keep your breathing even, so you don't interrupt. If it's happening even though you're here; Kar needs it more than he can bear. You try to give them some privacy and go back to sleep.

You do drift, but every now and then you hear snatches of conversation. Karkat talking about how scary and unexpected the heat was, how he never meant to get you mixed up in all of it. You want to tell him you know, and you don't blame him, but you can't. This is between palemates, not for your hearing ducts. Then Gamzee rumbles that it must have been serendipity at work, and that he's sure fishbro (eugh, that's you; why can't he just say your name?) wouldn't have done anything he didn't want to. Fucking right, you wouldn't have. Hormones or no, you would do anything for Kar. Forget every bad thing you've ever said about Gamzee Makara; he's all right in your book.

Then Karkat's voice gets quiet and you don't hear what he says, but you can tell he isn't very mollified. Gamzee's making questioning noises, only it ain't helping; Karkat's getting more distraught.

Then Karkat growls roughly at him, loud enough you hear it clear as day, “Gravid means I'm fucking carrying _eggs_ now, you pan-fried idiot! I'm full of Eridan's grubs! He didn't sign up for that, and neither did I, and I can't—I can't--”

Gamzee shooshes him then, real good, and he quiets.

A rush of fear and elation is washing over you. Grubs? There are going to be grubs? That's fuckin terrifying. You... you're no lusus, but there's a strange fierce pride welling up from deep within you, so strong your bloodpusher is swelling fit to burst. Grubs. _Yours_. You want to sweep Karkat up in your arms and hold him so close and kiss him and make him yours too, and you know it makes no sense, but you _want_ this. Your instincts are screaming at you that this is the best thing that ever happened to you, nevermind how absofuckinlutely unprecedented it is, and how hard it'll be to raise 'em when you have no idea how, empire be damned, Fef will understand, she'll be thrilled--

And your happiness lasts all of thirty seconds before you hear Karkat whisper to Gamzee, “Don't tell Eridan. This—this can't leave the pile. I don't want him to know. Maybe not ever.”

Your blood turns to ice. Kar... doesn't want you to know? You hear him confide in Gamzee that he doesn't know what to do, that no one else can know or he'll be culled—wait, does he think you'll cull him? Or turn him in to be culled? You would never! You would never... 

You know why he might think you _would_ , though. You were a real prat when you were younger and were so hung up on the hemocaste, yeah, but that was before you knew your best fuckin friend was an off-caste mutant. And all right, you had to lose a good fair few of your landdweller friends before you realized you were shooting your own self in the foot with all your talk of killing them all, even if you never went through with it. And you know you're still a prickly asshole sometimes, but you're working on it! You are. You aren't the same troll you were at six sweeps. You know what Fef plans to do when she takes over the empire, and you're used to the idea that you'll be _helping_ lowbloods once she's on the throne, and and—you would _never_ hurt Karkat. You're in fuckin love with him! Have been for sweeps! You want him, and you want these grubs, and you'd figure out a way to make it all work out. If... if...

But he doesn't want you to know. You're not supposed to know, and you can't let on that you do. It ain't your place to be intruding on things said in a fuckin feelings jam. 

But what is Kar going to do with the grubs? Is he going to give them to a lusus? Or is he keeping them? Is he just going to go raise the grubs by himself and just... leave you out of it? Forever?

You strain to hear more; maybe he's answering these questions right now and you aren't paying attention. But no. Karkat and Gamzee have gone quiet.

It doesn't matter. You're not his matesprit. All you did was help a friend in need. If this were any other pailing you'd never know if grubs happened, so why should it even matter to you that he doesn't want you to be a part of it now?

Because he doesn't trust you. Because you're more of a liability than you're worth. It hurts. It hurts worse than all a your wounds and all a your bruises and all a your broken bones. You know you made this 'coon and now you got to sleep in it, but you wish on your life you knew what it would take to climb back out and _fix_ your shit enough for everyone else to see you're not as despicable as all that anymore.

You have to bite down on the nearest snuggle plane to stifle the sob wanting to break free of you. They can't know you heard. You have to keep this devastation to yourself. You shift in the pile so your back is to them, pretend you're asleep still, and weep.

 

It's nearly sunrise when you wake again. You feel sick. And useless. And alone.

Gamzee and Karkat are still in their own pile across the room, and they're sleeping, Karkat tucked in Gamzee's long arms. You swallow bitter bile. It's... good, he's safe. He has his palemate to take care of him. He trusts Gamzee. More than you. And that's fine; why shouldn't he?—he's in _quads_ with Gam. He isn't sure about you yet. Probably never will be.

That's fine, you got enough pity for yourself. You don't need anyone else's. 

Karkat doesn't need you anymore right now. You did your part and got him through his heat, and now all you are is a burden and a reminder of things gone wrong.

You want to go home. You don't care if you're hurt, you can take care of yourself. All you got to do is find your palmhusk—you think you left it in your pants by the couch—and leave Seahorse Dad a voice message to come get you. He knows to press the button on the answergrub when it's flashing red on the shiphive phone; he'll get it. You don't even have to bother Karkat.

You won't have to bother Kar ever again; you'll let him seek you out if he ever wants to. You've done enough. He doesn't deserve to have you hangin on him and begging for his attention and fuckin up his life anymore than you already have. You'll carry your own self through this so he doesn't have to.

Quietly as you can, you hoist yourself up. You're still lightheaded from blood loss and probably concussion, still unstable on your feet, and it still really hurts to move. But you got to.

It's too dark in the hive now to see much without your glasses, but you make your way to the door that leads out into the hallway, feeling with your good arm. Of course, that's the one your bad hand is attached to, and you wince when you bump it too hard against the door handle, but you bite your lip and don't make a sound.

You're breathing hard by the time you shut the door to the spare block behind you and start slowly shuffling down the hall. It's... it's not that far. You just have to make it to the livingblock. Just one foot in front of the other. Over and over. No big deal.

Except you're concentrating so hard on getting through that initial hallway, you forget about the stairs.

The first one takes you by surprise, and you trip over your own feet, then you drop, smacking your shoulder _hard_ on the way down, banging up your horns, bumping and twisting your aching thorax going heels over head, and making new bruises on your shins and elbows as you go. You roll down the entire flight, only coming to a stop once you hit the hardwood landing at the bottom. Everything is spinning. You can't breathe. Everything is shock and pain. It takes you a few minutes to realize the high wheezy whimpering sounds you keep hearing are coming from you. 

You can't move.

Then you hear thunderous footsteps, a muttered, “Oh god, what the _fuck_ ,” and you want to die.

You've woken Karkat.


	6. Karkat, pity the fool

==> Karkat, pity the fool

You wake to the crashbanging of _something in the hive_ , and spring up so fast you knock Gamzee out of your makeshift jampile. He shooshes at you from where he's fallen, paps your ankle, tells you it's probably just your fishbro up and needing to take a leak, 'cause see, he ain't in his pile.

You... you're going to kill Eridan. You _told_ him to ask for your help when he needed shit, but did he listen? Fuck no! 

You find him lying at the bottom of the stairs in a heap. Your pusher is in your throat as you rush down to make sure he's all right. Gamzee follows.

“Eridan. Are you okay?”

He got the breath knocked out of him, and he's gasping wetly instead of making words, so you take that as a no. You turn on the hall light and bend over him, looking him over without moving him. The fabric of his shirt over his shoulder is darkening wetly with fresh blood, and you hiss. Probably pulled some of his stitches, if it's bleeding straight through the bandages.

“Can you sit up?”

He squeezes his eyes shut, violet tears tracking down his cheeks, and wheezes, “Just leave me. Please.”

You glare at him. “Fuck you. No. I said can you fucking sit up?”

Gamzee comes and rests a hand on your shoulder, and you feel some of the snap and tension go out of you. All right. Maybe that was a little mean. You're just so fucking tired, and you already told the stubborn asshole to _ask_ for _help_ , and you're scared he's hurt himself worse out of stupid pride, and... you sigh.

“Shit. I'm sorry. Just... I need to know if your back is injured, and I'm afraid to move you until I know, so... please, will you try to sit up, Eridan?”

“I can help a brother out,” Gamzee says, and goes to Eridan's side to steady him when he's ready to try moving. You are so grateful. Fucking bless Gamzee.

Eridan's lip wobbles, but he takes a shuddery breath and nods.

After a few tries, he's sitting up with Gamzee's lanky arm around his back. He can wiggle his toes and he can move his arms, and he says it doesn't hurt more than before, so. That's good. Your pusher steadies a bit.

“'M fine,” Eridan says, his voice tight and thick. He's crying. Fuck, it twists your insides up with pity.

“No, nooklicker, you're not.” There's no venom in your voice; it's just a statement of fact. He starts to protest and you list off on your fingers all the things you can see that make him not fine. “You just fell down the entire flight of stairs, your shoulder is bleeding again and I probably need to fix your stitches, you can't even sit up without help, and you're fucking in tears. How is any of that fine?”

His breath hitches and his shoulders shudder. “I don't n-need your help.”

You fucking hate seadweller pride. He tries to turn away as fresh tears fall from his eyes, but you see them. Oh god. You're a fucking piece of shit.

“Fuck, Eridan, no, please... please, shhh, shoosh, I—fuck.” You crouch down beside him and try to get him to look at you.

“Why didn't you ask a brother for some assistance? Ain't no trouble to help a bro get his walk on,” Gamzee rumbles, rubbing slow circles in Eridan's back.

“You don't got any faith in me! Thought I could handle myself,” Eridan murmurs wetly, his head tucked as far toward his chest as he can get it. He doesn't want you to see him falling apart. “I just w-want to go home an get outta your hair.” 

You're pretty sure if he had any strength left in him, he'd be pushing Gamzee away.

You shouldn't, you know you shouldn't, but you can't stand seeing him like this. You're going to fucking comfort him. You reach out and put a warm hand on his good shoulder.

“Eridan, hey. It's all right. I want to help you. We both do. Please?”

He shakes his head. “'M just a burden on you.”

“No, you helped me, now I'm helping you. It's called reciprocation, and it's what friends fucking do for each other.”

He makes a soft 'khh' sound, almost a laugh. “Big fuckin help I was! Made a mess of everythin! And caused more problems on top! Real matesprit material right here.”

Oh fuck. Now it's your turn to shake your head. You squeeze his shoulder to get his attention as you talk over him. “Hey, shut up. Shoosh. You did what you had to. And honestly, it's nothing you did holding me back from being matesprits with you; that's all on me. You've been helpful and considerate and so goddamn patient, and I'm—honestly, I'm impressed. But I can't... I can't be matesprits with you. I can't _do_ that to you. Eridan, I'm a _mutant_. When it was just my blood I thought, stupidly, that maybe my skill could compensate and I'd be too badass to kill, but now?” You laugh bitterly, maybe a little hysterically. “Once Ascension comes I don't know what to do anymore. This new mutation means I am well and truly _fucked_. And I refuse to drag you along with me.”

There. You promised not to let him down until he was home, but you can't keep stringing him along like this. It's cruel. You can see how much it was hurting him, and fuck are you sorry. Past Karkat was a fucking asshole. 

He looks like he wants to object, and you let out an exasperated sigh. “Eridan. Look at me.”

You cup his damp cheek in your warm palm, turn his face up so you can see him.

Your jaw muscles are spasming with how hard you're clenching your teeth. This is so fucking hard. He's not going to _listen_ to you unless you make it absolutely clear just how fucked you are, though. “That heat I went through? That was just the beginning. I'm--” You have to take a breath, let it out slowly. You're going to tell him. You meet Gamzee's eyes over Eridan's head, and he nods placidly at you. He's here if Eridan reacts badly; he'll carry you through it. God, you are so lucky you have him.

“I'm... you know how none of our slurry made it into a pail? It's because. I'm, I'm gravid. There are fucking eggs growing in me now, and it's a culling offense, and not something I can _hide_ or make better by being _just that fucking awesome_ ; grubs aren't compatible with battleships! If you were my matesprit, they'd cull you for breeding me! So would you get it through your pan that it doesn't matter how fucking flushed I feel for you; I _can't_? I'm not getting you killed too!”

Eridan's face crumples, fins squashed and fluttering-tense, but he's pressing his face into your hand, not trying to pull away. His hand comes up to hold yours where it is, and he turns his head just enough to press a kiss into your palm. “Don't care,” he whispers, and you can feel his lips moving against your skin. “Want it. Want you. Want the grubs.”

This. This is not the reaction you were expecting. You thought he'd be horrified. Disgusted. At least a little scared! This tenderness is too fucking much.

There are tears blurring your vision now, and your hand is shaking against Eridan's face. “Do you understand me?! You'll _DIE_. I'm not letting you fucking die for me, you shithive-maggots pan-fried idiot!”

Suddenly, Gamzee leans in and wraps his arm around you too, hugging both you and Eridan and squishing you up against each other so you're effectively entangled in one big group hug. “Aw, brother, that is the sweetest and most flushed thing I ever did get a hear of. I told you it was a miracle most serendipitous that Eridan was all here for you to get your heat on with.”

You groan and shove at Gamzee's side. “Would you let go of us! I don't care if it's serendipity or not; I am _not_ condemning Eridan to death! And that is fucking _FINAL_.”

“Kar,” Eridan whispers, pressed up against you still in Gamzee's crushing hug, “Kar, I ain't joinin Ascension either. Decided a long time ago. I shoulda told you. I'm stayin to help Fef, and... and I'm stayin for you, if you'll have me.”

Oh, great. The Empress-in-waiting, who you don't want to hope too hard will survive challenging the current Empress, is complicit in Eridan's suicidal scheme to stay on-planet come Ascension. Great. Awesome. You can all die together.

You think your sarcasm gland might rupture.

Eridan lets out a wheezy, wet laugh. “Together. Ain't that the way to go.”

“A-fucking-men, my fishy friend,” Gamzee agrees, clapping him on the back. “I ain't leaving him neither.”

Fuck, you didn't realize you said any of that out loud. _Fuck_ , you didn't realize Gamzee was going to stay too if you did. Oh god, you want to die. “No. No. No no no no no no NO NO NO NO NO, no, you can't, I won't, I can't let you, you fucking idiots--”

“Shhh, palebro, shhh, love is a thing you can't be stopping just 'cause it's dangerous. And ain't none of us going without a fight, right?”

“Damn fuckin right!” Eridan says vehemently.

You... you can't stop crying. You're all of you crying, you think. And clinging to each other. You stay like that a while, all propping each other up, until the tears run out and you're just sniffling grossly and wiping your face on Gamzee's chest and Eridan's sleeve.

“If... if Feferi fails, you both have to promise me you'll join Ascension without me. Please,” you say, your voice low.

“If Fef fails, I'm goin down with her,” Eridan confides. “I ain't letting the fuckin Condesce have her or you without takin vengeance.”

“Oh, fuck, Eridan.” You want to cry all over again. He's so fucking stupid and loyal. You know there's not a damn thing you can say to sway him either; he's never had his head on straight where Feferi is concerned. Why are you even surprised he'll still go to those lengths even though he has no hope of ever being quadranted with her ever again?

“Gamzee?” He's being oddly quiet. It probably means you're not going to like what he has to say either.

“Mmm,” Gamzee hums, nuzzling his face in your hair. “Ain't got no oceans up in space, bro. No sand to rub all up between your toes. Seems to me all my favorite things is here, so why would I up and leave it all?”

You were right. Your pusher is in your throat, you hate it so much.

“I can't change your minds, can I.” It's a statement. You know when you're beaten. You just have to make sure you tried, for your own conscience. It's going to be tough to convince yourself you did everything you could as it is.

They both give you no's, Eridan's forceful, Gamzee's softer but no less a no.

“Okay,” you say. “Okay. We'll... we'll look after each other, then. For as long as we can.”

That's something you can all agree on.

 

The next night you all gather around the table beyond the nutrition block and discuss where to go from here while you eat leftover grubloaf and noodles. You don't want to stay in your hive right now; it's a fucking disaster area even after you and Gamzee have scrubbed every surface with harsh abrasives for hours on end. There are colors in your floorboards. Your respiteblock still smells like death to you.

Gamzee offers his hive, but you turn that down immediately. It'd need more cleaning than yours does to become habitable. You've been working with him on keeping things tidy, but after growing up without learning basic skills like how to fucking wash the dishes or take out the trash regularly, it's not been easy.

Eridan's been awfully quiet. Not because he's been eating... all he's been doing is moving his grubloaf around on his nutrition plateau and glancing at you every now and then like he's got something to say.

You shove another forkful of noodles in your mouth and point your tines at him. “What do _you_ think, Eridan?”

He puffs his chest up like he's going to finally spill the beans, but then bites his lips like he's thinking better of it. “I think you ought to stay someplace safe. Someplace easily defensible and, and someplace that's already fortified. That'd be good.”

“Oh yeah?” You raise your brows at him. “You know a place like that?”

“Well... I do, but. I don't want to be too forward.” 

He twirls his fork in his noodles, gathering up a huge mound. You wait for him to continue. 

You want him to ask you to come stay at his hive. You _know_ that's where he means, and you know he's been fighting the urge to suggest it all night. He's being too polite, though, like he'll scare you off if he acts like he _wants_ you to come stay with him, and you can't blame him for walking on cluckbeast shells. After last day, you may have softened a little on the idea of maybe being matesprits, and he knows it and knows you still haven't actually agreed to it. You might be calling him your matesprit in your head though. As a trial run! (Yeah, who are you kidding? You're pretty sure, at this point, that you want him, and that you're going to _keep_ wanting him. You just... want to let it settle in your pan a little before you tell him so.)

“Ain't you got a hive close by my beach, Eridan?” Gamzee says easily as he helps himself to another heaping plateful of food. “Why don't you and my diamondbro up and stay there a spell?”

“Yeah, why not, Eridan?” You fucking love Gamzee and his obliviousness to social niceties. You smile at him and then at Eridan, who's looking at you with the wariest expression, like you're poking fun at him. You are a little, but not the way he thinks. This isn't a joke; you really do want to go stay with him, you just think it's funny that he won't offer without first being prompted like this. “Is that safe enough? And you keep the place clean, right?”

“Of fuckin course I do! Ain't goin to live in filth like some dirtscrapin sludgefarmer.” He takes an indignant bite of his food. “You'll be safe an clean and livin in the lap of fuckin luxury if you stay at my hive.”

“Good. How soon can your lusus get here?”

Eridan's fork is paused halfway to his mouth. His eyes are wide and searching. “You mean it? You want to stay with me?”

It's a big deal, staying in someone else's hive for an extended period of time when you aren't desperate and aren't quadranted to them. (Yet?) You get it. It's still cute as goddamn fuck how excited he is about it, though.

“Yeah, I mean, I sure don't want to stay in this shithole of a hive right now. And you need someone to tend your wounds. And... I guess soon I might need some help with the... you know. Egg thing.” It just makes sense. And the fact that Gamzee's hive really isn't that far away from it does help, you have to admit. Having your palemate close by so you can keep an eye on him (and call him over if you ever need a jam) is a big plus. And if anything goes sideways with Eridan, you can always call Gamzee over. Not that you think you'll need to do that, but it's always prudent to have a backup plan.

His fins flare wide and there's a smile tugging at his lips. “That's true.”

“It's decided then. Wait... can Crabdad come too?” He might not like it, but you can't just leave your lusus here alone.

That spooks Eridan a bit, you can tell. He and your lusus have never been on the best of terms. He nods, though, apparently deciding it's worth it to have you close. You like that.

“Crabdaddy could always come and chill with me,” Gamzee pauses chewing long enough to say. “Would be nice to have a lusus in the hive what sticks around for a while.”

You look at your moirail and your bloodpusher melts in your thorax. He's twirling a lock of his hair in his long fingers, smiling back at you like he doesn't care one way or another, but you know. This would make him so happy. And Crabdad _likes_ Gamzee, and would smother the fuck out of him, and be right at home in that trash heap he calls a hive. You pound your fist on the table. “YES.”

Relief washes over you. This is working out. So far. You can do this, together, all of you can.


	7. Eridan, brood

==> Eridan, brood

You're not brooding! You're _researching_. There's nothing else you can really do while Karkat makes you convalesce, and anyway, you want to be as prepared as possible for when the eggs and then grubs come. You hounded Kanaya via Trollian until she gave you a few of her jadeblood schoolfeeds—some of them are apparently too full of lethally-kept secrets for her to share. She was very suspicious of your motives and insisted on sticking her nose in as far as you'd allow, which wasn't very. All you've told her is that you've found yourself in circumstances requiring this kind of knowledge. It's up to Kar to tell her about his condition. You didn't even let her know he's even involved. That's also up to him to say if he wants to. Honestly, you're pretty fuckin proud of how cagey you're being, and pleased as hell at how much information you've managed to obtain so far. 

That first week back in your own hive you spend mostly in your 'coon, alternately sleeping and reading on your palmhusk, going through the schoolfeeds as fast as you can—there's a _lot_ to know about incubation and proper grub handling--what temperature and humidity to keep the eggs for optimum hatch rate (oh god, you hadn't even considered that they might not all hatch), how to inspect them while they're incubating, how to tell if they're going bad and what to do to save the rest of the clutch, and how long it takes until they hatch. Then the grubs will be honing their survival skills in the caverns facing all kinds of deadly trials, which the jadebloods stay out of, so there's not a whole lot of information about their care past the first few days after hatching... You think probably you can simulate the trials with some lusus toys to help your grubs develop nice and strong the way they ought. Like hell you'll actually put them in any danger. Kar agrees.

The feeds on the care and upkeep of the mothergrub you skip for obvious reasons; ain't like suddenly Karkat's a mothergrub. He's still him, just full of eggs now. Oviparous. Gravid. (You kind of love rolling those words around on your tongue, pain in the ass fuckin v's and all.) There isn't much information about trolls in this condition in existence, you're finding. Nothing in Kan's schoolfeeds, and very little you've managed to scrounge up on the web. The laying part you're going to have to wing, and you're upright scared out of your wits over it. Not that you're letting on to Karkat about that, though. You keep all the fear to yourself and reassure Kar that this'll be a piece of pastry confection.

You update Karkat on your research every morning before he goes to sleep in the pile he's made near your 'coon in your respiteblock. He refuses to sleep in sopor for now, all concerned over how it might affect the eggs. You're so fuckin proud of him for suffering through dayterrors for the sake of the life in him and for actually making an effort to sleep regularly, since you know he's never been good to himself about that. You plan on spoiling him rotten as soon as you can get up out of 'coon without wobbling too much. 

 

It takes a week for you to regain enough strength to move around on your own. At that point, you follow Karkat around wherever he goes in your hive, palmhusk in hand, just to be near him. It got pretty fuckin lonely in your 'coon. He tolerates it, and that makes you so fuckin happy. You gave him full run of your hive, and even gave him the use of a better and faster husktop than his own that you had lying around. You learn that he's not an evening troll at all and has to get at least one mug of hot coffee in him each night before he'll talk to you beyond annoyed grunts. (And then you learn he usually likes two mugs, but is afraid of having too much stimulant while he's gravid. He's being so careful you could cry.) He spends a lot of his time on the husktop and hates having you look over his shoulder, so you're not sure what-all he gets up to on there. But he also likes to practice with his sickles every day, and lets you join him in your well-equipped training block. Not to spar, though; you're still too busted up and he's in a delicate condition and neither of you need to get hurt right now. You do get front-row seats for his workout, though, and _fuck_ but you love watching him move—he's solid muscle and his shoulders are sculpted like fine fuckin works of art, his thighs and ass are deliciously thick, and watching him work up a sweat wakes a hunger in you. Some days you got to hide your wiggly it hits you so hard.

Each night spent with him just makes you more sure of your flushed feelings for him. You want him. You want him here forever. He hasn't said how long he'll stay, or even if he wants to keep the grubs or not, so you're determined to make the most out of the time you do have.

As soon as you're up and moving around, you start wooing Karkat in earnest. Not that you weren't earnest before, you just... weren't sure how welcome your advances were. You still aren't sure about that, not really, but you do know that Kar is truly and actually considering you. That's enough hope to get you going. You think you have at least until he lays and the eggs hatch to show him your heart and how fervently red it beats for him. 

First you try gifting him pieces of jewelry in your color to show your affection—a fine gold bracelet studded with amethysts, a necklace of imperial sapphire, another of polished milky lavender chalcedony, a silver ring set with a single tear-shaped black opal that gleams cherry-red, purple, and pink. He laughs at you when he asks if you expect him to wear all that and all you can do is glub dumbly at him. You guess he's not the type to deck himself out, but you wanted to give him _nice_ things anyway. He never puts any of it on, but he doesn't throw it away or give it back to you either. And you think he actually likes the ring. That he holds up to the light and turns, making it flash red-purple. He keeps it close by his pile, and every so often he'll pick it up and look at it some more. That's not a _bad_ reaction, and your pusher swells every time you catch him handling that ring, but you can take a hint... he just isn't as into personal decoration as you are.

So you switch tactics. Next, you spoil him rotten on his favorite hard-to-get delicacies. He responds a lot better to truffle grubs and candied spiceplant. But as his belly gets fuller and fuller with eggs, his appetites change and he ignores your gifts as often as not. Suddenly the truffle grubs make him feel sick. The candied spiceplant burns in his gut. Either he doesn't want to have anything to do with it or he finishes off the entire gift in one sitting. 

You start cooking for him, not even in an attempt to pursue him, but just to make sure he's getting enough real nutrition as the weeks pass and he gets bigger and bigger. It does have the unintended side effect of legitimately charming him, though. He _likes_ when you feed him. When he starts asking for you to make skate fritters or chili-spiced shrimp or bream in butter noodles again, you can't help swelling with pride. You make him extra helpings of whatever he wants.

Finally, a perigee into your ardent courtship, when Karkat's so round it's hard for him to move out of the pile on his own, you hit upon the absolute perfect courtship material to add to your arsenal. Honestly, you're kind of ashamed you didn't think of it earlier. Kar fuckin _loves_ romantic comedies, right? And you happen to know all his favorites, so you start buying him the deluxe versions of all of them. Hitch, Love Actually, Pretty Woman, Say Anything, 10 Things I Hate (but actually love) About You, High Fidelity, and of _course_ Princess Bride, to list them all by their short titles... each week you gift him a new one, and each week you both curl up in a pile together to watch it. It's the fuckin highlight of your week--he gets so adorably and pitiably misty-eyed every time, and you get to cuddle him and swoon over him as much as you like while he's completely enraptured by the film. You pamper him, too, while the movie plays. You massage his sore back and belly with sweet-scented oils, feed him whatever weird thing he's craving, get him loose and happy and rumbling raspy purrs for you. That he lets you get that intimate with him gives you hope and doting on him makes you feel so good you purr right along.

 

Then, one evening, he abruptly doesn't want you to touch him anymore. At all. He's tense and extremely anxious and he snaps at you whenever you come near. Says he ain't feeling right and just wants to be alone, but you still go through the whole evening thinking you must have done something wrong, crossed some line you didn't realize you shouldn't, and now Karkat hates you. Maybe you were coming on too strong with your flushed affections and he feels pressured? Maybe he's having second thoughts about being here? Maybe he misses his own hive... you were already planning on redecorating and repurposing several blocks of your hive; maybe if you offered him free reign to design a space for himself here--?

You get caught up in your thoughts and spend the night brooding as you try to stay out of Karkat's way. It's easy. You just have to avoid your respiteblock, since Kar's holed up in there with his husktop. The hours pass as you anxiously clean your hive, just to have something to occupy your hands with. 

Around midnight you get yourself wedged beneath the nutritionblock sink trying to fix a minor but persistent leak in the pipes. You hear Karkat stomping around upstairs and pause to listen to make sure he makes it to the ablution block on his own all right. When he does, you breathe a sigh of relief. 

A little bit later, you make him a lunch and knock on the respiteblock door. You try to tell him about your hive renovation idea, but he doesn't answer. You feel a hollow ache at that, but you leave the food outside the door and leave him be.

You go and find Seahorse Dad and feed him a handful of shrimp then give him a rub-down, taking some comfort in the closeness. You find yourself pouring your fears out to him. He snorts in commiseration, implying that Karkat must be wrong in the head if he doesn't see what a fine young troll you are. You have to laugh. You're pretty sure that ain't the problem, but you appreciate your lusus' reassurance.

You don't know what to do with yourself once it starts creeping up on morning. Maybe you ought to sleep out on the sofa today? You really don't want to bother Karkat if he's still mad at you (especially when you still haven't figured out why), so you're contemplating it. That's when you hear Kar's voice from the back of the shiphive. You tilt your head, fins perking, listening... he's not calling for you, but he's yelling about something. Yelling... screaming? Oh god. The eggs? You are so fuckin daft; how could you not have realized sooner?!

Your pusher speeds as you run for your respiteblock, not giving a single fuckin damn if he wants you or not, you have to make sure he's all right.

He's not there.

You let out a strangled cry and grip the door frame, strain to calm yourself enough to hear where his sounds are coming from. “Kar? Kar, I'm comin,” you call.

“No, no no, please, _fuck_.” You hear him. That's Karkat, distressed, fuckin terrified, and you run to him.

You find him on the floor of the ablution block, his back wedged in the corner where the tub meets the wall. The robe he's wearing has fallen open and is baring him, legs splayed wide and bright red fluid spilled beneath him. It's time. He's laying.

His face is scrunched up with pain, beaded with sweat, and he's breathing hard and too fast.

“Kar!” You yelp, and rush to his side. 

He rolls glazed eyes over you and groans. “No, fuck. Eridan. I don't need—I can do this--” He cuts himself off with a harsh gasp and tenses all over, squeezing his eyes shut and crying out as pain grips him.

“Shut up, Kar. I ain't leavin you like this.” You don't care if he wants you gone. You can't leave him his privacy now, not when neither of you know what the fuck to expect. What if something goes wrong? It's your fault he's in this situation, at least in part, so you're going to do all you can to make it as easy as possible for him. “I told you ages ago I was helpin with the laying; what are you fuckin doing trying to sneak it behind my back for?”

“I know,” he pants. “I know. I just. Didn't want you to see me like this. It's disgusting. I'm so fucking gross.”

Fuckin stubborn asshole, he is, trying to do everything on his own. You love him, but it's the upright truth. 

“You don't got to hide anythin from me anymore,” you say as you hurriedly pull towels out and lay one under him, then shove several behind him to help support him and prop him up. “Promise. Not like I haven't seen you in compromisin situations like this before. Okay, maybe not exactly like this, but you get the gist!”

For heaven's bleedin sake, you helped him through his heat. You can help him through this too. “I love you, Kar. That fuckin includes the messy bits.”

Karkat grimaces. He nods, though. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

You kneel back down beside him. You want to touch him, you want to hold on to his hand, brush the damp hair out of his eyes, try to soothe on his horns. But after tonight you're afraid he doesn't want you to, and maybe that was just him being cagey about his condition earlier, but you're still unsure so you just... hover. “What, um, can I do?”

He reaches out and grasps your hand, squeezing hard. It feels like he's squeezing your pump biscuit. “I don't know. Just. Hold my hand?”

“Of fuckin course, Kar. All right. It's gonna be fine. You got this, you are so fuckin strong, Kar, you just got to push on through.” You grit your teeth as another wave of pain bears down on him and he nearly crushes your hand. It's fine. Nothing compared to what he's going through, you're sure.

You can see Karkat's gills flexing uselessly as he gasps for breath, and all his muscles are tensing as they try to force the eggs out of him. His poor bulge is waving around sluggishly (it hasn't been able to retract for weeks from the pressure in him), and oh fuck oh god you can see shell through the glistening red of his nook. 

“I can see one! It's comin!” you tell him, equal parts terrified and excited.

“Nnngh! Fuck. FUCK,” he grunts through clenched teeth. It doesn't come with that push. Or the next. Or even the next. That first egg takes an hour of agony before it finally slides free. 

You can't help it, there are tears streaming down your face as you clean it off and gently hold it up for Karkat to see. It's perfect. It's beautiful. Karkat agrees. You wrap it up in a pile of towels and go back to help him with the next.

He lays a clutch of three gorgeous eggs. You could not be fuckin prouder of him, or of them.

 

The pile of scarves and pillows and snuggleplanes and romcom dvds in your respiteblock becomes a nursery nest, with an exhausted Karkat and all three eggs nestled in it. You tuck them all in safe and warm, and you want so _so_ badly to crawl in with them and curl close to Karkat and hold him, keep him. But you still don't know if you're welcome, if his aversion to you being near him was just a temporary thing, or if he's decided he doesn't want you after all now the hardest part is over.

Karkat blinks up at you slowly, noticing your hesitation.

“Hey,” he says, yawning widely. “Eridan, fuck, come here. Don't you dare think you're going to sleep in the 'coon today.”

He lifts an arm and holds his hand out to you, making impatient grabby motions. You smile a little and take his hand, let him guide you where he wants you. You lie beside him in the pile, facing him with the eggs snug between you. He keeps your hand and pulls it over his side so you can feel his thoracic cage move as he breathes. He leaves your hand there and relaxes, sighing contentedly. You relax too, gently rubbing soft circles into his side, over his tender gills.

“Beautiful,” you whisper.

“The eggs? Yeah,” he agrees.

The corners of your mouth twitch upwards. “A course them, but I meant you, Kar.”

A sleepy glare gets leveled at you for that. “Shut the hell up. I just spent all night and half the goddamn day shoving huge eggs out my nook; I look like worse shit than usual.”

“Poppycock an nonsense, Kar. You're radiant.”

He goes scarlet out to the tips of his ears and curls in on himself a little. “To you and no one else, maybe.”

Oh. You've gone and made him uncomfortable now. Great job, Eridan; maybe you should have kept it to yourself. Maybe it's not you he wants finding him so appealing even after everything.

You chew on your lower lip, your hand stilling on his side. “...Maybe so. Is. Is that a problem?”

He takes a moment to think about it, squinting at you consideringly. “I guess not,” Karkat says.

You let out a breath you didn't know you were holding, you're so relieved.

“I mean, if any pan-fried idiot is going to find me attractive when I'm clearly a wreck, it should be my matesprit, right?”

You nod. He has a point, out of anybody it should be your... wait. Matesprit? He—you—he's talking about _you_ here. _You're_ the pan-fried idiot who finds him attractive right now. You're... you're his...

“Matesprit?” you whisper, your pusher in your throat.

Karkat catches his lip in his teeth. “Yeah. If you still want to be. With me. I... I want that.” His brows draw together and he takes a breath. “I'm a selfish fucking piece of shit and I want you. Even if—even if it means we all get culled. I want to try this. You and me. And the wigglers--”

You don't wait for him to finish. You close the gap between you, careful of the eggs, and catch his mouth in a fierce kiss. “Yes,” you breathe into him, “yes, yes Kar, yes, please, so fuckin flushed for you--”

He kisses you back languidly, his hand coming up to cup your cheek. “Good. Me too,” Karkat whispers, his lips brushing against yours.

You feel like you could burst, you're so happy. You kind of want to hear him say it too, though... just, you know he meant he's flushed for you too, but you want those words. You've waited so long to hear them.

You break the kiss and press your forehead to his, softly caressing his face with your fingers. He relaxes under your touch. A warm gusting sigh escapes his lips.

“Mmm, you're what, Kar?” you ask, quiet and hopeful and a little bit sultry.

He doesn't say anything right away. Maybe he's shy with the words. He did already say 'matesprit' out loud though, so he's got it in him. You know it's not a declaration he'd ever make offhand; no, when Karkat says he's flushed for you he'll mean it. You just keep gently running your fingers over his soft cheek, waiting.

And waiting...

“Kar?”

No answer.

You lift your head a bit, squinting in the dark without your glasses on to see him. He's... his eyes are shut. You can feel him breathing even and steady.

“Did you fuckin fall asleep on me?” you whisper, huffing a quiet laugh. “God damn it, Kar.”

Well then. He did have a fuckin rough day, after all; you can forgive him. You settle back into the pile and nuzzle in close to Karkat and all your beautiful eggs. Tomorrow is soon enough to hear him tell you just how ruddy flushed he is for you. You'll get it out of him. And you can be patient; you've been so patient already. 

For now you can sleep happy, knowing he's yours as much as you are his.


End file.
